The date was August 4th and Agoge Combatives’ Torrez Finney had a big fight on a regional card for Aries Fight Series: Nashville Underground. The card was litered with hot prospects and Contender Series castoffs. Finney knew that a big moment in that spot should lead to a bigger opportunity for him, and he won in spectacular fashion. As any prospect might, he and his management team tried to capitalize right away.
“I had just got done fighting on a card the night before – Nashville Underground – and I had just got the win,” Finney recalled. “It was funny because my manager, he was there for the fight and my management team was like ‘let’s get the video so we can send it off to the matchmakers.”
Every part of the moment made perfect sense. Not only was it exactly what they needed to get the opportunity, but it was also exactly the way they drew it up.
“Obviously nothing is guaranteed, but it was more like, let’s get this win and hopefully we get on Contender [Series],” he said. “That was a part of the goal. We have a plan… one part of the plan was to get a certain amount of fights on the year and get on this year’s.”
However, the team hit one major snag. The technology needed to get that information in Mick Maynard’s hand, just do happened to be down that night.
“We couldn’t get the video to send off to the matchmakers because the site was down,” Finney said with a laugh. “Low and behold, we get it early in the morning and about four to five hours later the manager called me and said ‘what are you doing October 10th?”
Finney had all the dates in October schedule on his mind already and was ready for anything. So after immediately signing on the line, he got to work for the date.
Now he’ll get the chance to be his gym’s second UFC fighter (alongside of Trevor Peek). To do so, he’ll need to get past Yuri Panferov on the final episode of this year’s Dana White’s Contender Series. That card starts at 8pm EST this Tuesday on ESPN+.
The entire audio of this interview can be heard at 2:23.
