Lightweight: Omar Morales vs. Harvey Park

Tale of the Tape

Pros and Cons

Omar Morales

Pros

• Solid kickboxing
• Explosive
• Good grappling
• No Cons

Harvey Park

Prediction

It’s hard to get a good read on how they match up as there is little to no footage on Morales. Morales looks to be a good kickboxer from the footage but everything else is unknown. Park though is a solid fighter who has many weapons and has fought good competition. The pick is Park as he’s just a fighter ready for the UFC and the unknown of Morales.

Next: Marilia Santos vs. Lucrezia Ria

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We’re now six episodes in on the current season of the Contender Series. As the season is almost at a close, there are only a few more bouts to be announced. And it looks like another one is set. Sources confirm to Cageside Press that Kailan Hill will take on Impa Kasanganay in a middleweight bout on August 27th.

Hill is only 5-0 as a professional, but also went 3-0 as an amateur. He’s a well-known name on the regional scene for his highlight-reel knockouts, however. He’s even made further waves appearing on ESPN a few times.

Training out of Black House MMA, Hill works alongside the likes of Lyoto Machida, Pedro Munhoz, Brian Ortega, and many more. His last four fights have all been for the top UFC feeder league in Legacy Fighting Alliance.

Standing across from Hill will be another 5-0 fighter in Impa Kasanganay. Unlike Hill, Kasanganay is unknown to even most hardcore MMA fans. Fighting out of Charlotte, North Carolina, Kasanganay trains out of Gym-O with the likes of Scott Holtzman, Bryan Barberena, and more.

Kasanganay just started his MMA journey in January of 2017. He went 4-1 as an amateur and is now 5-0 as a pro. He’s kept very active and has fought for Island Fights, KOTC, and on the prelims of LFA in his last bout.

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Tuesday night once again brings us another installment of Dana White’s Contender Series, and this week, it was light heavyweights in the featured slot. Aleksa Camur (4-0), still incredibly young in his career, was set to take on Fabio Cherant, also young in his career with an identical 4-0 record. One of these prospects would lose their perfect record, but the other would get an incredibly appealing shot at the UFC while their careers were still in single digits.

Also on the docket, two-time Invicta FC competitor Tracy Cortez, looking to land a contract in the women’s flyweight division. Cortez enters the night on a five fight winning streak, perfect since her pro debut. She was set to take on Mariya Agapova.

For a full preview of the week six card, check out our Breakdown and Predictions page. Tune it come fight time (8PM ET) for full results!

Dana White’s Contender Series Season 3, Week 6 Results:

Light Heavyweight: Aleksa Camur (@aleksa_camur) vs. Fabio Cherant (@buffalomma8)

Aleksa Camur def. Fabio Cherant via TKO (Strikes) at :48 of Round Two

Featherweight: Steven Nguyen (@Steven_Win) vs. Aalon Cruz (@aaloncruz)

Aalon Cruz def. Steven Nguyen via KO (Flying Knee) at 4:36 of Round Three 

Women’s Flyweight: Mariya Agapova (@mma.maska) vs. Tracy Cortez (@TracyCortezMMA)

Tracy Cortez def. Mariya Agapova via Unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 29-27)

Welterweight: Daniel Rodriguez (@d_rod_mma) vs. Rico Farrington (@TriggermanMMA)

Daniel Rodriguez def. Rico Farrington via Unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)

Heavyweight: Michal Martinek (@michal_blackbeard_martinek) vs. Rodrigo Nascimento (@zecolmeiia)

Rodrigo Nascimento def. Michael Martinek via Submission (Arm Triangle) at 3:16 of Round One

The post Dana White’s Contender Series Season 3 Week 6 Results appeared first on Cageside Press.

Light Heavyweight: Aleksa Camur vs. Fabio Cherant

Tale of the Tape

Pros and Cons

Aleksa Camur

Fabio Cherant

Who has the Advantage?

Striking: Camur
Speed: Cherant
Knockout Power: Camur
Chin: Camur
Kickboxing: Neither
Footwork: Cherant
Wrestling: Neither
Grappling: Cherant
Submissions: Cherant
Cardio: Camur

Prediction

Both men are young in their career and this is the biggest test for both of these guys. Cherant has fought awful competition, beating guys with a combined record of 3-14 with eight total fights (pro and amateur). Camur’s opponents combined record is 18-4 showing to be much better. Camur has a big advantage on the feet as his jab and power will play a factor. Cherant may have the better grappling but that usually shows when the opposition goes for takedowns. Cherant just isn’t ready and I think better suited for 185. I have Camur getting it done.

Next: Steven Nguyen vs. Aalon Cruz

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Five episodes in, twenty-four fights decided, and seventeen contracts awarded, the Contender Series is well underway. Still, there are more fights to make toward the end of the Summer, and there are still a few announcements to be made. Sources have confirmed to Cageside Press that Dylan Lockard and TJ Brown will battle in a featherweight clash on the August 27 edition of Dana White’s Contender Series.

Dylan Lockard has a professional record of 6-1. After a loss early in 2018 he would go on to win his next three fights. In his last bout, he moved up to lightweight and won the NEF title.

Fighting out of Danville, New Hampshire Lockard trains out of Sityodtong Boston. Lockard most notably has fought for top regional promotion CES. He’s ranked #4 among the featherweights in New England according to Tapology.

Across from Lockard will be the 13-6 TJ Brown. Training out of Westside Fight Team, Brown fights out of Little Rock, Arkansas. The 29-year-old has a lot of experience with a total of 19 fights.

Brown like Lockard is also on a three-fight win streak. He has fought for various promotions with his latest fight coming in Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA), a promotion that has sent many athletes up to the UFC. Fighting frequently between 145 and 155, he will take this big opportunity at lightweight.

The post Exclusive: Dylan Lockard vs. TJ Brown set for the Contender Series on August 27 appeared first on Cageside Press.

Three episodes in, fourteen fights decided, and nine contracts awarded, the Contender Series is here. Still, there are more fights to make toward the end of the Summer, and there are still a few announcements to be made. Sources have confirmed to Cageside Press that Dusko Todorovic will take on Teddy Ash in a middleweight clash on the August 27 edition of Dana White’s Contender Series.

Todorovic, fighting out of Belgrade, Serbia will become the first Serbian to step inside the Contender Series cage, now situated at the UFC Apex. Tovorovic is currently 8-0 with a 100% finish rate. The 25-year-old will be making his first appearance since December of 2018.

In his last fight, he won the Serbian Battle Championship middleweight title. His opponent that night was Michel Pereira, who debuted in the UFC in May and secured a first round finish. Coincidentally, Todorovic stopped Pereira in the first round.

Standing across from Todorovic this August will be Canadian Teddy Ash. Ash is 14-4 as a professional and on a two-fight win streak. “Bear” is 29-years-old, and is 5-1 in the last two years. He was scheduled against two Brazilian fighters originally before being booked opposite Todorovic.

In his last nine fights, Ash’s only loss is to former UFC fighter Dominique Steele — but one fight later, he won the rematch. Throughout his career, he’s won many titles including being the current Unified MMA middleweight and light-heavyweight champion.

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Las Vegas, NV — Dana White was front and center ahead of the season premiere of the Contender Series on Tuesday. And while airing on Tuesday, the “Tuesday Night” portion of the title has been dropped. It’s now just Dana White’s Contender Series.

There was plenty to talk about Tuesday however. Not just the Contender Series, but also the UFC Apex, a stunning new state-of-the-art production facility in Las Vegas. It’s the new home to the fighting show, replacing the old TUF gym. It will be home to more than just the Contender Series however.

“I can do any style of fighting in here. I can switch this place out every three hours and do a different fight,” White boasted Tuesday. “We have our own network now, which is global. We have our own facility now, which we can do any style of fighting. We’re getting into all these different businesses. I’ll put on kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, boxing, MMA events, all will come out of there. And other live venues all around the world.”

Big plans moving forward, in other words. But then, “part of the fun for me still is continuing to grow this business,” White, soon to turn 50, admitted. Later, he’d suggest he doesn’t really see a day where he doesn’t want to be in the driver’s seat.

Growing the business means streaming, and White was bullish on that subject Tuesday. Noting that the UFC’s deal with ESPN is for seven years, White said plainly, “streaming is the future. Some people are resisting, they always do in the beginning. But this is where it’s going.”

To illustrate his point, White noted that personally, he has “Cox Cable, and I have DirecTV. I have both. I have a thousand channels. There’s nothing on TV every night when I flip through the channels. I’ve seen this movie a f*cking thousand times. I don’t like this show. I’m never going to watch Lifetime. You start flipping through these channels, right, every one of you right now, I guarantee if you think about it, there’s probably three or four channels that you go to religiously. And those are the channels that you watch.”

That’s where streaming has the edge. “When streaming comes, right — I’ve got cable and satellite. I don’t know what the hell I’m paying for it, but it isn’t cheap. It’s expensive. Now, you can pick three or four of your top channels, or five, and you’re paying five bucks a month. To watch what ever’s on there. And you can go in there and watch whatever you want, whenever you want. It’s the future. That’s where it’s all going.”

Could the PPV business model follow, and become part of such a service, without the $60 price tag? “I don’t know right now.”

Later, discussing the shift from broadcast networks to streaming, White said that “it’s going to be interesting to see how this all shakes on in the next six, seven years.”

“Five, six months we’ve been in business with [ESPN]. Our business has gone like this [gestures upward]. I can tell you on every level how our business has grown in just six months with these guys.” Then, he added, “wait til they really get it together.”

It’s easy to forget that ESPN+, where most of the UFC’s content in the U.S. is found these days, is still a very new service. “These guys are the best to ever do it. For a reason. They’re f*cking good and they’re really smart and they’re really pushing the envelope.”

“They have our U.S. rights right now. You know they’re going to go into all these different countries with streaming. ESPN’s going to be available all over the world,” he proclaimed. “And this thing’s just going to grow and get bigger.”

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Las Vegas, NV — It’s easy to forget that Laura Sanko, who currently handles interviews and in-cage announcing duties for the Contender Series (not to mention her role with Invicta), was once a fighter herself. In the early 2010s, Sanko made appearances for Titan FC and Invicta.

The MMA landscape has changed a fair bit since those days, but the more things change, the more they stay the game. Fight night jitters. The highs of winning and the lows of losing. Ahead of the third season premiere of Dana White’s Contender Series, Sanko told reporters including Cageside Press that “every time I see a fighter walk out, I get almost nauseous to be honest with you. It reminds me of the times I was able to do that. I feel the excitement for every single one of those fighters, every single winner, and my heart aches for every single loser.”

“I feel a lot of ownership over this show in a lot of ways,” she added.

The new Apex facility gives a bit of a movie-set quality feel to the production this season. “I think that’s fair to say,” Sanko said of the suggestion. “I think you’re right, the TUF Gym feels a little bit more Fight Pass-y, a little bit more like Invicta. If I screw up, maybe I won’t lose my job. In here, it’s ‘oh man, it’s go time. It’s go time!'”

Still, she said Tuesday at the UFC Apex, “I love doing live interviews, I love doing live hits. It kind of just is what it is. I thrive off that. It feeds the adrenaline of not fighting anymore.”

As for the fights on her radar, “I think the ladies fight tonight is going to be really interesting. You’ve got Kali Robbins and Hannah Goldy coming in here. Goldy is undefeated, Kali Robbins has done a lot of good in a number of organizations. I remember watching her first hand in Invicta. I always like to watch the ladies throw down, so that’s one I’m definitely looking forward to.”

As well, Hawaii’s Punahele Soriano stands out. “You can’t get a guy who at least on paper is just [more] perfect for this show. 5-0, all finishes, all in the first round,” she noted. “If he can do that, you’ve got to believe he’s going to get the contract.”

The post Laura Sanko Gives Her Picks On Who to Watch in Contender Series Season 3 Premiere appeared first on Cageside Press.

Las Vegas, NV — Brendan Fitzgerald and Paul Felder will anchor the broadcast duties as Dana White’s Contender Series gets underway with its third season tonight. And ahead of the show, the pair spoke to the media about what makes the show different from, say, The Ultimate Fighter.

Fitzgerald, for his parts, feels of the show that “it’s the perfect thing for an attention span in 2019. Tune in, four, five fights, end of the night, these guys are in the UFC. Or girls. It’s a perfect show.” Fitzgerald has been with the series since the start, and he recalled that “after the first one I did two years ago, I was like ‘first of all, I love this, and I’ve found kind of what I love to do. And second of all, this show is going to be something, because it’s fun to do, and it’s fun to watch.”

Felder, meanwhile, outlined why Contender Series fighters are succeeding in the UFC. Moreso, than say, some of their TUF counterparts. “I think for this particular situation, you’ve got the best regional guys. Guys that have either been in the UFC, or have been close for a long time. And they’re picking up the best of the best from around the country, and at this point, from around the world,” he said. TUF was a little different.

“With the Ultimate Fighter, you had to have personalities. You had to have a mix,” he explained. “Yeah you had guys that were really talented, girls that were really talented. But there were some people thrown in there for entertainment purposes. Where as this show’s entertainment purpose is ‘how good can you fight? and how much are you going to bring it on fight night?'”

The one hour show and all the nonsense of the reality show, “it’s gone. It’s just about the fights.”

The post Paul Felder Explains Why Contender Series Fighters are Finding Success in the UFC appeared first on Cageside Press.

This season on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series, the UFC has been targeting international fighters more so than just US-based athletes. They have booked fighters from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, and more to date. That trend is set to continue. Sources confirm to Cageside Press that Russia’s Ramazan Kuramagomedov will take on American Jordan Williams in a middleweight clash on July 23.

Williams competed last season on the Contender Series against Tim Caron. He beat Caron but wasn’t awarded a contract in the end. The win was also switched to a no contest when Williams tested positive for marijuana metabolites.

Williams has only fought once since the Contender Series. He competed just last month on the Bellator 220 card and won by TKO in round three. In the last five years, Williams has only one loss which is to current UFC fighter Dwight Grant.

The Russian-born Kuramagomedov has a pro record of 4-0. Kuramagomedov is a 2x Russian Cup Champion. He also trains with a legit top camp in Jackson Wink MMA.

Kuramagomedov has fought in Russia, Dubai, and Germany, with his last fight coming in the US. That was for the PFL, where he beat a good prospect in Robert Hale.

Williams was originally supposed to take on Christian Savoie, but Savoie opted instead to stay at 170lbs. The plan is to get him rebooked.

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