Midnight Mania: Snubbed Contenders Series Winner Fires Back At ‘Flawed’ Dana Logic

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Last week (Tues., Aug. 20, 2024), 25-year-old Torrez Finney picked up his second victory under the Contenders Series banner to improve to 9-0 as a professional. Unfortunately for “The Punisher,” he didn’t impress UFC CEO Dana White enough to earn a UFC contract. In fact, he was the subject of a negative tirade from White, who claimed Finney would “get absolutely decimated in the UFC.” He also blasted Finney for fighting just once in the year between Contenders Series appearances.

The point of the show may be to judge fighters, but it felt a bit harsh. Finney has a bit of hype online, and he seems like a reasonably talented Middleweight prospect. Now, Finney has revealed there’s even more to it than White claimed, as he explained that a potential spot on The Ultimate Fighter sidelined him for the first quarter of 2024.

“You know, I don’t think a lot of people know this, but I was selected to be on The Ultimate Fighter this year,” Finney explained to MMA on Sirius XM (via Forbes). “Whenever you sign The Ultimate Fighter contract, you are restricted from fighting during that time span. So during that time span in January, I couldn’t fight for January, February, March.

“So right when I was selected,” Finney continued. “Well, right when they made the selection, the day before they were about to take your phones — the head producer comes up to my room and says, ‘Hey, we’re going a different route. We’re doing the, um, country thingy, you know, everybody from a different country.’ They selected somebody else. I said, ‘Okay, boom. All right. It is what it is.’ They did that to me, and they did it to Yusuf Zalal. Yusuf Zalal turned around two weeks later and went out and fought on the UFC Fight Night against Billy Quarantillo. And with me, I had to turn around and go find a fight. Two weeks later, we found a fight. I fought in May, but the problem is, four weeks before that May fight, I got offered to be on the Contender Series.”

Finney accepted and won the May bout despite already having the Contenders Series offer in hand. It was a risk to gain experience as had been requested after his first win on the show, yet Finney doesn’t feel he’s being given credit for taking that chance. According to “The Punisher,” these circumstances make the logic behind White’s critique flawed.

“So a lot of that stuff that was said — like when he said, ‘I told you to go back and get more fights, and then you come on here with one fight’ — I feel like some of that stuff is a little bit flawed because, one, I don’t make the decision to be on the Contender Series,” Finney explained. “And then, two, I would have had more fights if it wasn’t for The Ultimate Fighter. And then again, I feel like there’s a disconnect because Dana has so much on his plate. I don’t think he knows everything that goes on within the UFC, so I don’t expect him to know that type of thing. But to say some of the things that he went out there and said without having the knowledge of it — I feel like some of that stuff is a little bit inconsistent.”

Hopefully, this bit of controversy doesn’t hold back Finney from a productive relationship with the UFC. Of course, he could alternatively attempt to follow the footsteps of Brendan Loughnane, who was dissed by White on Contenders Series and then went on to win a million dollars in Professional Fighter’s League.

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