UFC Fight Night 79 bonuses: Dominique Steele's slam KO is a $50,000 no-brainer

Cortney Casey and Seo Hee Ham

SEOUL – Dominique Steele, Doo Ho Choi, Seo Hee Ham and Cortney Casey each earned $50,000 bonuses for their performances at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 79 event.

Ham and Casey earned the “Fight of the Night,” while Steele and Choi each won “Performance of the Night” honors.

UFC officials announced the winners at the night’s post-event news conference, which MMAjunkie attended.

To open up the main card, Choi (13-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) wasted no time against Sam Sicilia (15-6 MMA, 5-5 UFC). When an aggressive Sicilia came forward, Choi blasted him with counter punches, then put together with a series of rights that knocked Sicilia’s mouthpiece to the canvas. Choi got the TKO finish just 93 seconds into their featherweight fight.

Steele (14-6 MMA, 1-1 UFC) picked up a certain “Knockout of the Month” candidate, and a strong contender for “Knockout of the Year,” when he scooped up “Maestro” Dong Hyun Kim (13-7-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC) early in the third round of their welterweight card opener and slammed him to the canvas. Kim was out when his head hit the ground, and Steele made sure the job was done with brutal elbows before the ref could jump in.

Ham (16-6 MMA, 1-1 UFC) took a unanimous decision from Casey (4-3 MMA, 0-2 UFC) in their strawweight bout on the preliminary card in a close back-and-forth fight. All three judges scored the first round for Casey and the second and third rounds for Ham, who was the clear crowd favorite in her home country.

UFC Fight Night 79 took place at Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul. It was the UFC’s debut in South Korea. The entire event streamed on UFC Fight Pass.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 79, check out the UFC Events section of the site.