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Another chapter in Dana White’s Contender series is officially on the books, as the show’s fourth season wrapped up in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
For the second consecutive season, the series set a record with the number of contracts offered. Thirty-seven athletes have been entered into the UFC’s roster based on their DWCS performances in 2020, far eclipsing the total of 30 candidates who joined the series promotion a year ago.
“It’s a testament to the talent that is out there,” White said after awarding four contracts on Tuesday.
It’s a good week to discuss DWCS alumni, as Alex Perez will become the first athlete on the show to compete for a UFC championship this weekend at UFC 255.
Here are three of this year’s signings to keep an eye on the future.
Phil Hawes (9-2), middleweight
It’s been a long time for Hawes. The 31-year-old was touted as a major prospect as soon as he turned pro in 2012. He is a former junior college national wrestling champion at Iowa Central Community College, the college that produced Jon Jones, and the stories of its potential began. coming out of JacksonWink MMA (where he trained) years ago, when he switched to MMA. The hype about Hawes hit a serious wall a few years ago, when the UFC gave him a shot on the reality series “The Ultimate Fighter”, and he lost the fight that would have earned him a spot in the game. House. He later had a chance on the Contender series, and he was eliminated.
Well, Hawes, who now trains at Sanford MMA in Florida, has reignited the hype. He got a contract with a first round knockout of Khadzhi Bestaev in Week 6 on September 8, and in six weeks he went 1-0 in the UFC, knocking out Jacob Malkoun in 18 seconds in October. It took a little longer than expected for him to get here, but Hawes is in the UFC, and there is a lot of curiosity about how he will fare in the 185-pound division.
Luana Pinheiro (8-1), strawweight
Look, Pinheiro is young – 26 – and still in the rough in his MMA career. Whenever you talk about a DWCS alumnus, the question arises whether the UFC is too much, too soon. Much of the young talent that comes out of this show is weighed down by the limitations of the term “young talent”. The UFC is a tough place to try to figure things out and develop. It’s sink or swim as soon as you’re in the Octagon.
Pinheiro falls under this classification. Will the UFC be too much, too soon? It’s possible. The strawweight division is, in my opinion, the deepest female weight class in the UFC. But Pinheiro’s potential is obvious. She has completed six consecutive fights, all in the first round, the last being Stephanie Frausto’s victory last week. It has incomparable power for the weight class. She is also a black belt in judo and a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His style is not only effective, but also jumps off the screen for viewers. If she’s able to grow up in the tough surroundings of the UFC, she’ll get a lot of attention soon.
Carlos Ulberg (3-0), light heavyweight
Ulberg, 29, has luxury built into the UFC in that he is a teammate and close friend of one of the sport’s biggest stars, middleweight champion Israel Adesanya. Adesanya, being the good friend that he is, has done a great job talking about Ulberg in the media. But if you’ve watched Ulberg’s performance in DWCS Week 8, you know this guy is more than just “Izzy’s friend”. Ulberg showed a great deal of skill in a first round knockout of Bruno Oliveira, who was not a gimme opponent.
Ulberg is a former professional kickboxer with experience in his native New Zealand and China. Like Adesanya, he is full of confidence and he trains out of Auckland powerhouse, City Kickboxing. To borrow a phrase from “Zoolander”, you could say that Ulberg is “really, really, really, ridiculously beautiful”. It won’t win him any fights, but it doesn’t hurt to be a cameraman in a sport like this. If Ulberg makes noise in 2021, don’t be surprised.
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