And thanks to the magic of COVID-19, the card was down a fight. Gloria de Paula was forced off the card after contracting the disease; her fight with Pauline Macias has been pushed back a few weeks as a result.

That having been said, the four fights that remained were certainly intriguing. Among them, a heavyweight scrap between Jared Vanderaa and Harry Hunsucker. We caught up with self-proclaimed “giant nerd” Vanderaa ahead of the fight (back when it was originally expected for September 22). Training with the likes of Dan Henderson, Vanderaa was up against Harry Hunsucker, the HR MMA heavyweight champ entering on a five-fight win streak.

Then there’s City Kickboxing’s Carlos Ulberg. While just 2-0 in MMA with two fights very spread out over the years, Ulberg was be one to watch because of his kickboxing credentials — and because he’s a teammate of middleweight champ Israel Adesanya.

Check below come event time for full results from Week 8 of Dana White’s Contender Series 2020.

In the opening bout of the evening, heavyweight Jared Vanderaa found himself hit hard more than once by Harry Hunsucker. But Vanderaa proved to have a chin on him, and once he got the fight to the ground, it didn’t take long for him to take Hunsucker out with ground n’ pound.

Luis Saldana took Vince Murdock down with a leg kick, and had his jab going in the first round of their featherweight scrap. Saldana continued to give Murdock fits in the second, with Murdock unable to land a takedown, or throw with any sort of consistency. Saldana, meanwhile, mixed up his strikes, going to the body, head, and working in kicks. Early in the third, Murdock wound up dropped following a front kick to the face. Two, actually. Follow-up strikes flew immediately after, while Murdock covered up. Ref Herb Dean gave Murdock plenty of time to recover/fight back, but it was all over. Saldana secured an impressive win, and likely, a UFC contract.

Welterweight action saw Ignacio Bahamondes weather a bit of a storm early. Edson Gomez, who came in heavy for the fight, was throwing with power. But he tired, and the taller, longer Bahamondes began picking him apart at range. Then, in the second round, as Gomez was bent over trying to avoid yet another attack, a front kick landed clean to the face. Gomez was out cold, and Bahamondes had a walk-off KO.

In the featured fight, a couple of hooks from City Kickboxing’s Carlos Ulberg was all it took to send Bruno Oliveira to sleep. A clean knockout, early in the first round for Israel Adesanya’s teammate.

Dana White’s Contender Series Season 4, Week 8 Results

Carlos Ulberg def. Bruno Oliveira by knockout, Round 1, 2:02
Ignacio Bahamondes def. Edson Gomez by knockout (front kick), Round 2, 2:31
Luis Saldana def. Vince Murdock by TKO, Round 3, 0:44
Jared Vanderaa def. Harry Hunsucker by TKO, Round 1, 3:34

Contracts: Jared Vanderaa, Luis Saldana, Ignacio Bahamondes, Calos Ulberg

The post Dana White’s Contender Series Season 4, Week 8 Results appeared first on Cageside Press.

Who’s likely to earn themselves a UFC deal as the Contender Series gets back underway? As always, we’ve got a breakdown and predictions for each fight on the card. Let’s get to it!

Middleweight: Carlos Ulberg vs. Bruno Oliveira

Tale of the Tape

Pros and Cons

Who has the advantage?

Striking: Oliveira
Speed: Ulberg
Output/Volume: Oliveira
Knockout Power: Oliveira
Chin: ?
Kickboxing: Ulberg
Footwork: Ulberg
Wrestling: Oliveira
Grappling: Oliveira
Submissions: Oliveira
Cardio: ?

Prediction

Ulberg is a product out of the red hot City Kickboxing and is a very good talent. You still can’t get too much out of him in only two fights. One fight was in 2011 and the other in 2018. Both of those opponents were bottom of the barrel competition. Oliveira by far has shown more over better fighters. That said, going against a high-caliber kickboxer in Ulberg, the way Oliveira tends to keep his chin up and his hands low is asking for trouble. I’m siding with the hype of Ulberg as I think he’s not a guy Oliveira can just walk through. I’m predicting Ulberg to piece Oliveira up on the outside and catch him coming in.

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Ahead of his Contender Series opportunity, we caught up with the SMASH Global heavyweight champ, who told us that despite the quarantine, “I’m busy as all hell, and I’m not making any money. So nothing in my life has changed.”

“During this quarantine time, I decided to make the smart business decision of opening my own gym. Genius move on my part,” Vanderaa revealed. “No one else is doing it, everyone is shutting down, I’m like ‘you know what, it’s a great time, the market is clear to open up a gym.’ Yeah, smartest business decision I’ve made yet.”

We warned you about that sense of humor.

Vanderaa got his start in MMA through wrestling. In his younger days, he did watch the sport, but only so much. Same as now, in fact — in essence, the coach in him comes out.

“Don’t block with your face! Check a damn kick!,” Vanderaa laughed, noting his reaction to watching fights on TV. “It kind of takes me out of it a little bit, from enjoying fights.”

“I do watch the heavyweight division, for obvious reasons. Gotta see who my opponents are,” he admitted. “I do always have my fandom of your classic fighters, Arlovski, JDS, stuff like that.”

Outside of that and light heavyweight, where he previously competed, however, Vanderaa doesn’t watch fights unless someone he knows personally is fighting, like “Chito” Vera, who he calls a “phenomenal guy,” when he defeated Sean O’Malley recently.

Vanderaa trains with Dan Henderson, who, he says, still stops by the gym for some wrestling work. Which leads to something of a humbling experience, apparently.

“I’m tired of getting thrown every time I shoot. I believe it’s the height difference, he’s like 4″2, I’m 6″4, that’s a long drop for a shot. And Dan’s part brick, so it does not work out well,” Vanderaa explained.

“He’s always been a dense human being, so every time he hit people, it was just stupid. Now he has old man strength, so it adds on to the density,” he added. “You got older, now you hit harder. What the f*ck?”

The heavyweight is also a bit of a self-admitted nerd. A big one, actually. “I’ve been watching anime since I was like 3, 4,” he told us.

“I’m happy that anime has kind of got a little more mainstream, but I do hate hearing these hipsters like ‘I’ve been a fan since Bleach,  Naruto.’ Oh, how cute. I’ve been a fan since Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, Dragon Ball. The OG stuff,” he stated. “It doesn’t give you any more points because you liked it more. But yeah, I’m a giant nerd. Outside of being a nerd, I’m also giant into the occult. I’m basically gothic without the makeup all the time.”

The Adesanya of the heavyweights? Minus the colorful hair maybe? In any case, as fun as Vanderaa is, he does have a tough fight coming up against Cota. Who he says definitely has a chin on him.

“I feel like I could bring a brick to this fight, beat him over the head with it several times, and he still stands,” observed Vanderaa. There’s that, and what Vanderaa referred to as a Mexican boxing mindset, but in MMA. In short, Cota is one tough challenge.

That said, Vanderaa admits that he thrives off negative emotion. “It’s bitter, it’s evil, mixed emotions all the time. That’s where I’m at,” he said, when asked about how he’s looking at the Contender Series. If that’s the key to success, let’s hope he stays negative right up until he has his hand raised.

Jared Vanderaa faces Oscar Ivan Cota on Dana White’s Contender Series on September 22. The event airs on ESPN+, and on UFC Fight Pass in Canada and elsewhere.

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The former Unified MMA middleweight champion has already experienced what UFC fight week looks like after cornering his teammate Tanner Boser at UFC Fight Island 3. But the 28-year-old doesn’t get caught up in the hype of fighting for a bigger promotion and treats every fight the same.

“Everyone talks about the bright lights and the glitz and glamour but you know it’s a cage fight in the end right?” Bhullar told Cageside Press. “The rules are the same, nothing changes. You make the same kind of walk, you’re in the back lock room … it’s all really the same. Once you, in your head, let all that seep in and make it different. You’re doing that to yourself. You’re letting external pressures affect you.”

Bhullar added, “But you know to answer your question like it did help, yeah going there with Tanner and getting to see it all firsthand. Especially on the Fight Island event like with it being completely quiet and everything that is is a little bit different, but I mean, overall, it’s all the same.”

Bhullar (8-0) has finished six of his eight career opponents and is coming off a unanimous decision victory over UFC veteran Matt Dwyer at Unified 38 in July 2019. “The Begal” is expecting an action-packed fight and one that will catch the eye of UFC President Dana White.

“I’m going to win this fight by one of two things,” Bhullar explained. “I’m going to be the first guy to win a flying omoplata or leaping scissor kick, it’s one of those. If Bruno wins, he wins by just basically coming out and just cleaving my head off in the first like, minute. But I’m gonna do everything in my power to not make that happen. On paper, it just makes for an exciting fight. I think the styles match up really well. But I’m going to do everything in my power to come out on top. I just gotta focus on me and show up that day with the desire to make sure this is been a long time coming. And I have to make good on that.”

Contender Series Week 8 takes place on September 22 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

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