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    UFC Kansas City Bonuses and Aftermath: Four Fighters Get $50K, Tom Aspinall’s HW Record Touched, Anthony Smith Retires, and More

    UFC Kansas City is now in the books, and the event delivered several notable moments for MMA enthusiasts. The fight card was held on April 26 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri.

    The event featured several notable names like Ian Garry, Carlos Prates, Anthony Smith, Michel Pereira, Giga Chikadze, Ikram Aliskerov, and Randy Brown.

    A Look at the Aftermath of UFC Kansas City

    The event earned $2.2 million in gate revenue. Additionally, the fight card attracted 15,984 people.

    In the co-main event, Anthony Smith locked horns with Zhang Mingyang in a light heavyweight scrap. The fight was scheduled to be “Lionheart”s last appearance inside the UFC Octagon.

    Mingyang made quick work of Smith and scored a TKO victory in the opening round of the fight. With the victory, “The Mountain Tiger” extended his record of always scoring a victory in the first round. All of Mingyang’s 19 professional wins have come via first-round finishes.

    The knockout resulted in the Chinese fighter being named among the recipients of the ‘Performance of the Night’ bonus worth $50,000. Mingyang now has three such bonuses in the UFC.

    The win also helped the 26-year-old reach a tie with Tom Aspinall for the third-longest active knockout streak (3 knockouts) in the multi-billion-dollar promotion.

    After the fight, Smith bid farewell to the UFC in an emotional speech.

    “I wanna thank every single one of you guys throughout my entire career. The mid-west specifically has had my back. I made a home here in Kansas City in the fight game, I absolutely love every one of you,” said Smith.

    Smith then thanked the several people who helped him in the UFC. He added:

    “I wanna thank Dana [White], Hunter [Campbell], Sean Shelby for dragging me out of the depths of nowhere when I was coming from Strikeforce,” shared Smith. “All the blue shirts, the security guys, every single staff member… every single one of you made an impact on my life. When I started this game, I was homeless, I had nothing going for me, and now this platform has allowed me to raise my family.”

    In the prelims of the event, Cameron Saaiman and Malcolm Wellmaker fought a bantamweight bout. The fight did not last long, as Wellmaker knocked his opponent out less than two minutes into it. He also received an additional $50,000 as a ‘Performance of the Night’ bonus.

    Randy Brown and Nicolas Darby locked horns in an exciting welterweight showdown on the main card of UFC Kansas City. The fight was a thrilling back-and-forth affair that ended with a second-round knockout victory for Brown.

    Their bout received the ‘Fight of the Night’ honors, and both fighters took home an additional $50,000 each for their efforts.

     

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