The saying goes that getting to the UFC is the easy part, staying there is hard part.
Ohio’s Dominique Steele earned his way into the UFC after beating CES champion Chuck O’Neil for the promotion’s welterweight title. He would make his UFC debut only five weeks later, but lost to Zak Cummings by knockout in the first round. It was not the start to his UFC career that Steele wanted.
Some athletes have been cut after a first loss in the UFC, but Steele was giving a chance to redeem himself and was offered a second fight by the organization at today’s UFC Fight Night 79. Steele was matched up at ‘Maestro’ Dong Hyun Kim, a fighter also making his UFC debut. This time, Steele would flip the script on his opponent and give him a loss in his UFC debut by brutal TKO by slam, following up with a couple nasty, unnecessary elbows.
https://twitter.com/ufc/status/670556347256012800
Steele not only won the fight, but earned himself a ‘Performance of the Night’ bonus, which comes with a $50,000 bonus check. No allegations here, but the bonus is also subject to each athlete passing their drug testing for the event.
As if he knew the bonus was coming, Dominick Steele did some dancing in the crowed after leaving the cage, which he explained in a post-fight interview:
The performance earned Steele his first $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus. But he earned another one with the crowd for dancing outside the cage.
I just love to dance, Steele said. I can dance if I want to. I can leave my friends behind. Because if my friends don’t dance, if they don’t dance, they’re no friends of mine.
Indeed. Watch the above video to get Steele’s breakdown of his knockout win and post-fight Safety Dance.
