Who gave the best performance on the Nov. 22 "Night of the Champions"?

Depends.

On paper Bam-Rod for sure but I was extremely unimpressed and underwhelmed by how poor Puma Martinez was in terms of actual skills. Bam-Rod is excellent but I've been much more impressed with him in other fights of his because he was actually facing skilled opponents.

Benavidez did exactly what I thought he would do to Yarde who despite somehow having been gifted not 1, not 2, but 3 world title shots has never beaten anyone world level. His best win by a mile is Lyndon Arthur who is Euro level or fringe world level at best if you want to be generous to him and Yarde is 2-1 vs him but he went life and death with him in their trilogy fight.

Yarde's claim to fame is having 1 very good round vs a washed Kovalev who had been transformed into much more of a boxer than the boxer/savage puncher of his prime years who was only throwing medium power shots when he was actually throwing with power and Yarde threw everything bar the kitchen sink at that washed cracked chin version of Kovalev and couldn't even drop him once. Kovalev jabbed Yarde to death, had that one bad round, and then continued jabbing him to death before sparking him out cold with a jab.

And having a competitive fight with an old Beterbiev who is always going to struggle vs speed for a few rounds at least at his age. Yarde's success in that fight is overblown. If you listen to him and his team and the British media he was winning the fight and had Beterbiev badly hurt but neither are true. Sure he won some rounds but Beterbiev was beating him up, especially when he'd warmed up, and he wasn't hurt at all.

Benavidez said he did a better job on Yarde than Kovalev and Beterbiev who are great LHWs and got him out of their quicker but context needs to be applied there. Yarde tried to outbox Benavidez and he was throwing pity pats and wasn't throwing full power punches and even though I think it would've been a suicidal tactic for him to stand on the ropes and trade with Benavidez, and we all saw what happened when he was backed to the ropes, throwing pity pats and trying to do your best impersonation of a slick boxer and a very poor one at that greatly diminished any chance he actually did have of winning. Tundi's genius game plan hinged on we've seen Benavidez struggle with movement before, let's outbox him

And Kovalev, as said, was a shell of himself. Prime Kovalev who was punching with full power would've brutally sparked Yarde out cold early

Also, I think Yarde's loss vs Beterbiev took something out of Yarde, both mentally and physically. My fellow Benavidez fans will tell you that Yarde will never be the same after the beating Benevidez gave him but I'm sure some will try and act like the same doesn't apply with the one Beterebiev administered to Yarde despite Beterbiev being a much harder puncher than Benavidez. Even a beating at the hands of an ancient Beterbiev is going to take a lot out of most fighters and completely ruin many too. I think the same applies to Benavidez and fighters like Loma too.

Don't get me started on Huggy Bear Haney there's nothing to like about him in or out of the ring and once again he stunk out the house on a Saudi card or Saudi promoted card. Everyone on the card either fought like a warrior or at least provided or tried to provide some kind of entertainment but that overrated spineless gigantic weight bully octopus fought like a petrified hen literally spending the entire fight jabbing and holding on for dear life every single time Norman threw a punch or got anywhere near him.

Mason vs Noakes was fight of the night and both fought like warriors. Mason just edged it in terms of actual rounds won. 7-5 was about right even though Mason did more damage albeit the cut on Noakes' eye was caused by a head clash

Noakes won warrior and toughest SOB of the night for sure and performance of the night goes to either Bam-Rod or Mason. I'll give it to Bam-Rod because despite how poor and devoid of skill Puma Martinez was he is a world class fighter and was a reigning world champion, whereas, I'm not sure if Noakes is and his fight vs Mason was very close and competitive.

 

Is there really any doubt?

Clearly Bam.