Dana White Awards Four UFC Contracts After Contender Series Finishes
Dana White handed out four UFC contracts after a violent night of Dana White’s Contender Series finishes at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas. The biggest impression came from Quentin Pasley, whose first-round elbow knockout led White to compare the 24-year-old to Jon Jones.
Week 5 of Season 10 featured five fights, three stoppages, and one winner who was told to come back later. By the end of Tuesday’s card, the season’s contract total had climbed to 24.
Pasley entered the light heavyweight main event at 3-0 and left it at 4-0. He took Arlind Berisha down, moved into a dominant top position, and ended the night with elbows that knocked Berisha out cold at 4:41 of Round 1.
Berisha had been 5-0 with a finish in every fight. That streak ended the moment Pasley found space for those shots.
Pasley said the finish was the plan once the fight hit the mat. “My grappling has been good all camp. So, once he was down there, I was just looking for the finish. Submission or ground-and-pound, didn’t matter.”
White had been surprised to see a 3-0 prospect in the main event. The knockout answered that question, and the UFC CEO awarded the contract while likening Pasley’s game to Jones.
Pasley, who has listed Jones as his favorite fighter, did not treat the comparison as a blueprint. “So, to hear that comparison is crazy… I’m my own person; I got my own style.”
The other finishes were just as sudden. Flyweight Christian Natividad folded Colton Loud with a body shot at 1:10 of Round 1 and moved to 10-0.
Natividad, nicknamed “The Hawaiian Punch,” is the younger brother of former UFC fighter Kevin Natividad. He threw heavy from the opening exchange and did not need a second round.
Martin Kozak then battered Christian Echols until the middleweight fight was waved off at 1:32 of Round 2. Echols had missed the limit, and Kozak used the size gap to pick him apart at range before a body-shot barrage broke him down.
Echols had dropped Kozak in the first round, but referee Mike Beltran ruled the blow a low strike and paused the action. The restart did not change the result.
Isaac Moreno had to survive rather than finish. The undefeated welterweight outpointed Reginaldo Junior by unanimous decision, 29-28 on all three cards, after spending the later rounds defending late submission attempts.
Moreno said he was getting married hours after the fight. White gave him a UFC contract as a wedding gift and kept his record unblemished at 9-0.
The one winner who left empty-handed was Apollo Gomes. The Brazilian bantamweight was dropped twice in Round 1 by former ONE Championship title challenger Kwon Won-il, then rallied over the final 10 minutes to win 29-28 across the board.
White told Gomes to get more experience and try again. A decision win after two knockdowns was not enough on a night defined by knockouts.
That standard is the point of the show. White is not signing every winner. He is signing the fighters who look ready to be thrown into the UFC immediately.
Pasley now becomes one of the more interesting light heavyweight additions of the season, even with a short résumé. Natividad and Kozak arrive as finishers. Moreno arrives as a prospect who already had to solve a grappler on short notice.
Contender Series returns next Tuesday for Week 6. Until then, four new names are on the roster, and one highlight from Pasley’s elbows is going to follow all of them.