Dana White’s Contender Series returned this past Tuesday for its eighth season with an absolute bang, as the UFC boss awarded four prospects UFC contracts following four brutal knockouts.
Dana White’s Contender Series has become the UFC’s most popular product outside of their PPV and Fight Night events, giving fans the chance to watch a prospect’s UFC tenure from the very beginning.
With both Sean O’Malley and Jamahal Hill having come through DWCS, the significance of the product has only grown, giving the promotion a chance to scout higher-level talent for the show and now over 30% of the UFC roster is made up of Contender Series alumni.
Lone’er Kavanagh opens up the season with a terrifying knockout
The first bout of the season came in the flyweight division and was being highlighted by hardcore fans as one of the best matchups for the entire 10-week season.
Lone’er Kavanagh, who fights out of Great British Top Team with Nathaniel Wood and UFC veteran, Brad Pickett, was taking on fellow young prospect, An Tuan Ho.
This was a high enough level bout to take place under the UFC banner of a Fight Night event, but alas, it was given the task of setting season 8 in good stead.
It did just that, as just halfway through the first round, the 25-year-old Kavanagh landed a hellacious left hook on the chin of An Tuan Ho, rendering him unconscious.
“Yeah, that was vicious, one of the nastiest knockouts we’ve ever seen on the show and we’ve seen some s*** on this show. And again, (An Tuan Ho) is no slouch either… I’m excited to see what Kavanagh does in the UFC,” Dana White said at the post-fight press conference.
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Bruno Lopes, Jose Delgado, and Mansur Abdul-Malik also earn contracts
With the UFC likely already putting out the feelers to their flyweight roster trying to get a taker for a fight against Kavanagh, three more fighters earned themselves a shot in the premier promotion with emphatic knockouts.
Despite Kavanagh’s knockout win being a difficult one to follow on from, Jose Delgado did so tremendously when he snatched Ernie Juarez’s undefeated record from him by knocking him out with a flying knee.
Although White’s choice to reward Delgado with a contract was an easy one, it wasn’t so easy in the next bout when Bruno Lopes redeemed his DWCS loss last year with a second-round finish.
The Brazilian had to overcome adversity in round one when he was dropped by the Georgian wrestler, Mikheil Sazhiniani. He made it out of the round and subsequently finished the fight in round two with a body shot.
In the first main event of the season, Mansur Abdul-Malik maintained his undefeated record with a devastating ground-and-pound knockout over Wes Schultz, picking up the biggest win of his six-fight career.
“You can tell that the big boy (Abdul-Malik) has never been pushed that hard, he got tested tonight and like I said, he passed the test. Now the next one he’s got to get under his belt, he’ll be on a prelim of one of the cards and he’ll get his first UFC fight under his belt then he’s on his way,” White said about Abdul-Malik.
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