Julian Erosa’s last night as a professional fighter ended with a knockout and a $100,000 bonus. He was one of four Performance of the Night winners at UFC Vegas 123 on Saturday at Meta APEX, alongside main event winner Tom Nolan, middleweight Joe Kropschot and flyweight Lucia Szabova. MMA Junkie, MMA Mania and UFC.com all confirmed the list. The UFC skipped Fight of the Night entirely and paid $25,000 apiece to Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani and Rodrigo Sezinando for their doctor’s stoppage wins.
Erosa (32-13 MMA, 10-9 UFC) came in knowing this featherweight bout with JeongYeong Lee (11-4 MMA, 1-3 UFC) was his retirement fight, and for about 15 seconds it looked like a bad idea. Lee charged straight at him and put him on the canvas almost immediately. Erosa got up, steadied himself and found a clean right hand roughly a minute later that put Lee down. A few follow-up shots finished it at the 91-second mark, according to Sherdog. His résumé includes wins over Darren Elkins, Charles Jourdain and Sean Woodson, and the UFC sent him off on X with a “Thank you Julian Erosa!”
Nolan (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) stretched his UFC win streak to six in his first main event, stopping Renato Moicano by TKO in Round 3. The finish has an asterisk on it. Moicano had Nolan’s back in the second round and was hunting a rear-naked choke when referee Dan Miragliotta stood them up after about eight seconds of relative inactivity. Nolan, the Australian they call “Big Train,” took the reprieve, hurt Moicano with a knee and dropped a pile of ground-and-pound on a fading opponent the next round.
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Kropschot (10-3 MMA, 1-0 UFC) had his UFC debut a few weeks after earning his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series and a few days before marrying his high school sweetheart, per UFC.com. He nearly finished Nick Klein (6-4 MMA, 0-3 UFC) at the end of Round 1, then got the armbar early in Round 2. That makes nine submissions in his 10 wins.
Szabova, the former Oktagon MMA double champion and the first Slovakian woman in the UFC, stayed undefeated in her official debut. She was the biggest favorite on the card at 9-1 against Tainara Lisboa (7-5 MMA, 2-3 UFC) and fought like it, smothering the Brazilian before finishing her with ground-and-pound in Round 3 with 100 seconds left.
Lebosnoyani (12-2 MMA, 3-0 UFC) mangled Farman Hasanov’s left eye badly enough to force a third-round doctor’s stoppage. Sezinando (9-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) opened up Theodor Berggren’s upper lip with an elbow, and the cageside doctor waved it off after two rounds. In the co-main, Jacobe Smith stayed unbeaten with a decision over Randy Brown.
My take: Erosa’s bonus is the only one I wouldn’t argue about at the bar. Szabova was priced at 9-1 and won the way 9-1 favorites are supposed to, so I’ll keep my excitement for a night when someone actually makes her uncomfortable. Nolan deserves the check for what he did on his feet afterward. Still, a six-fight streak that gets extended because Miragliotta got bored eight seconds into a back mount is going to cost me money someday when the books price him like he’s bulletproof.
