Dana White was not a happy man following the debut episode of Contender Series season 9.
These were the first fights since it was announced that UFC had signed a massive $7.7 billion dollar media rights deal with Paramount CBS set to kick off in 2026. Still being negotiated: the rights for The Ultimate Fighter, Asian development show Road To UFC, and Dana White’s Contender Series. So it makes sense that White was hopeful DWCS would deliver fireworks tonight.
It did not (full results here), and White was extremely critical of the fighters at the end of the broadcast.
“It was a weird night,” he told Laura Sanko as they went through the bouts to announce any signees for the UFC. There were only two: Ty Miller and Baysangur Susurkaev. Everyone else got ripped into pretty bad.
“Yuri [Panferov]. Tough guy,” White said. “But he didn’t show me anything that made me say, ‘I have to have this guy. This guy needs to be in the UFC.’ Maybe next time, Yuri. Radley [da Silva], I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the show or not, but, that is not how you get yourself into the UFC. And when I watched your interview after, you didn’t seem very excited or felt I was gonna say, ‘Yeah, this guy needs to be in the UFC’ either.”
“Next time, when you show up at the Contender Series, you’re gonna make me say ‘I gotta have this guy.’”
“[Neemias] Santana thought it was 1993. Absolute deliberate headbutt to the face. And then some lunatic behind me was screaming and definitely talked Ilian [Bouafia] into fighting and staying in there, but he didn’t come in and fight. The guy, literally after the headbutt, he didn’t do anything. And Santana did a lot of yelling. That’s about it. For a guy who just lost a point, I felt like he should have come out and tried to finish the fight. He didn’t do anything after the headbutt either.”
“The fight was weird. And, yeah, I’m not interested in either one of those guys.”
White had a strong message for future Contender Series fighters in the coming weeks.
“Forget forget about me and the people that are watching. Don’t waste YOUR time,” White said. “This is your opportunity. We only do this once a year. This is your time to shine.”
“If you’re coming here to the Contender Series and you don’t know how this show works, don’t even waste your time. Call the matchmakers and cancel your flight. You know what we expect here. You know what we’re looking for. And it didn’t happen tonight.”
It wasn’t a compete waste of time, though. White is looking to fast track Baysangur Susurkaev into the UFC ASAP.
“My guy, this guy,” White said of Susurkaev. “You made my Tuesday. I love everything about you. Mick [Maynard]‘s already gonna put you in the UFC, like, soon. So hopefully you don’t have any little injuries or anything like that because we’re gonna be seeing you very soon. And and let me tell you what, I haven’t been this excited about a guy in a very long time. I have very high hopes for you.”
“Welcome to the UFC, and thank you for saving episode one of the Contender Series.”