Rising UFC Lightweight Ignacio Bahamondes had quite the reaction to his $50,000 UFC 313 bonus.
A training partner of UFC Welterweight Champion Belal Muhammad, Chile’s Ignacio Bahamondes snagged the biggest win of his 22-fight career on Saturday night with a triangle choke submission of Jalin Turner.
This win would be Bahamondes’ third-straight in the shark tank that is the UFC lightweight division.
The thrill and the agony would be heard backstage, Turner turning in an early retirement from the sport at 29 years old and Bahamondes cashing in on his top-15 ranking, come Tuesday.
Belal Muhammad delivers news of $50K bonus
In his corner, Muhammad couldn’t be more pleased with Bahamondes’ performance— the same could be said for the UFC brass, who handed out $200,000 in bonuses at UFC 313.
One of them had ‘La Jaula’ written all over it. Muhammad touched up on his Spanish to tell Bahamondes he received the bonus, met by much fanfare from the newly-minted contender.
“I was gonna say, I’ve been doing Spanish classes and tell me how this sounds… ‘Ganaste el bonus de noche,'” Muhammad told Bahamondes backstage, which translates to ‘you won the bonus of the night’.
Bahamondes let out a yell in celebration before embracing Muhammad.
“I’m just practicing my Spanish,” Muhammad joked. “Hard work, brother. Hard work.”
Brotherhood between titleholder & title-hopeful
Muhammad took the road most traveled for his UFC title shot against Leon Edwards last summer, defeating ‘Rocky’ by decision to become the new welterweight champion of the world.
The 27-year-old Bahamondes has his own dreams of UFC gold, and is willing to work for it just as Muhammad did on his 10-fight unbeaten streak, beating the likes of Gilbert Burns, Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, Sean Brady and more.
“Of course, of course, he showed me the path himself,” Bahamondes told Hablemos MMA of training with Muhammad.
“He showed me how it needs to be done, and he had the toughest path of them all.
“He showed me that with pure hard work and consistency, I can make it, too. It’s just a matter of time.”