Dana White’s Contender Series began back in 2017. Since then, the Contender Series has produced some big-name upcoming stars like Dan Ige, Sean O’Malley, Geoff Neal, Maycee Barber, and Edmen Shahbazyan. In short, it has been a huge success for finding talent.
A Contender Series fight is one that has stakes like none other, where fighters must showcase their skills to impress the UFC president enough for a contract with the promotional giant. Holding the Contender Series with a smaller cage inside the UFC Apex venue makes for a tense atmosphere, and with only close friends and family of the competing fighters in attendance as spectators. Emotions always run high, as a limited number of contracts can be given out on any given night, and many fighters can potentially have their dreams snubbed out solely because of bad luck.
In rare cases, however, a fighter gets a second look. This series will examine those.
Cortavious “Are You Not Entertained” Romious (8-2 MMA)
Age: 30 years old
Height: 5’4″ / Reach: 68″
Weight Class: Bantamweight (135lbs.)
First DW’s Contender Series Fight: 2023 (Week 10)
Old DW’s Contender Series Opponent: Ramon Taveras (10-2 MMA)
Second DW’s Contender Series Fight: 2024 (Week 2)
New Opponent: Michael Imperato (12-6)
First Contender Series Fight
Cortavious Romious entered his first Contender Series fight riding a three-fight winning streak. Romious is a multi-fight veteran of regional promotions: 360FC based out of Arkansas, US and Caged Aggression MMA out of Iowa, US.
Romious would be one half of the main event for the Constender Series 2023 season, week 10.
In what was an absolutely wild fight while it lasted, Romious was dropped with a left hook and finished off with hammer fists in just 29 seconds of the opening round.
First Contender Series Opponent
In his first Contender Series bout, Cortavious Romious took on Ramon Tavares. The quick finish by Ramon would grant him a UFC contract (the fifth fighter on Week 10, 2023 to win a contract).
Ramon has fought just one time and had one bout canceled in the year since fighting Romious.
For Ramon’s UFC debut he fought then 10-1 fighter, Serhiy Sidey on UFC 29 in January. the fight was a rematch and turned out to be an absolute war. Ramon was able to secure a split decision victory but egregiously missed weight, coming in at 139.8lbs. for a bantamweight bout.
Most recently, Tavares had to withdraw from his July 27th bout against Caolan Loughran on UFC 304 thanks to an injury.
The Road Back
Cortavious has had just one fight in the nearly 10 months since his first Contender Series bout. Cortavious ran through Erik Vo, taking less than a minute to armbar the then 15-28 fighter. That fight was a catchweight at 160lbs.
Cortavious also had a canceled bout against Dan Sokolowski in February thanks to a promotional event scheduling change.
Gameplan/ New Opponent
For his shot at redemption on the Contender Series, Cortavious Romious will be fighting Michael Imperato.
Imperato has won five of his last seven fights dating back to September 2019. He is a five-fight veteran of Prospect Fighting Championships based out of Ontario, Canada.
The combined records of Imperato’s opponents in the last five years at the time of fighting them is: 57-41
In his most recent fight, Michael Imperato seemingly overcame the odds attracting the attention of UFC President, Dana White, with his finish of UFC veteran Ricky Bandejas at Unified MMA 55. Michael took just 51 seconds to submit Bandejas via rear naked choke. The fight and Imperato’s emotional post-fight meeting with Dana were featured on the most recent episode of Dana White: Lookin’ For A Fight- Toronto, which dropped last week.
