Dana White was brutally honest with Torrez Finney when he told him why he wasn’t getting offered a UFC contract following episode 2 of Season 8 of the Contender Series.
However, White might have missed a few details as he delivered his spiel.
Following Finney’s unanimous decision win over Cam Rowston, White criticized Finney’s gas tank and rudimentary offense and pointed out the fighter’s seemingly lackluster attempt to gain more experience since his first appearance on DWCS in October 2023.
In case you missed it, here’s the feedback White gave Finney.
“In my opinion, Finney, now you were here last year and my recommendation to you was to go out and get some experience,” White said.
“You’re young; you’re obviously talented. You’re now 9-0. You got one fight. You went out in one year and fought one fight. And you know I’m always brutally honest with this stuff. You get absolutely decimated in the UFC with the performance that you put on tonight. Your performance last year was better than this performance. You’re 25 years old kid. You’re obviously a talented athlete. Go out and get 3 or 4 fights this year. Then come back and talk to us about the UFC. You gassed out tonight. You had a tough time getting through 3 rounds. You’re not ready for the UFC. When I said go out and get some experience I didn’t mean one fight. I meant get some fights. We’ll see you soon.”
Here is the segment:
That was vintage White. Brutal, to the point, but honest.
Finney appeared on MMA Today on Sirius XM to clarify a few things about the situation. He was asked if he took any of White’s criticism personally.
“I didn’t take it personal, but I will say a lot of the things that was said was a little bit flawed,” Finney said.
Finney pointed to White’s assertion that he didn’t attempt to get more experience over the past year.
“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 said. “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.”
This info would have been a key detail to point out. The MMA community might have taken White’s comments differently if the public had known this.
“So right when I was selected,” Finney explained. “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 had an eventful year in his MMA career, but the feedback suggested he had been resting on his laurels.
“It was actually a discussion with me and my management team on whether I should take that May fight because I already had the Contender shot signed up. That means if I didn’t fight in May, I would have been fighting on the Contender Series without a fight between the last time I was on the Contender Series and this time I was on the Contender Series.”
When you think about it, Finney could have been a lot more bitter with the rejection because of what he went through to get back to the Contender series. However, I think he showed a lot of maturity and poise in handling rejection under the circumstances.
Finney pointed out something that probably needs to be considered, and White has confirmed it in other situations: The promotion’s CEO doesn’t always know every detail about what’s happening in the UFC.
Remember, White didn’t know about Francis Ngannou’s name being scrubbed from production, and he also told us the decision to part ways with Muhammad Mokaev wasn’t his–it came from the matchmakers.
“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.”
Here is a look at Finney’s segment from the podcast:
While Finney made great points on the podcast, the primary concept White shared was accurate. The young middleweight is not ready to be successful in the UFC.
Could White and Co. throw him out there and give him a puncher and explosive athlete’s chance to win a few fights on the prelims? Perhaps, but because of his athleticism and freakish build (Finney may have the largest arms of any 5-foot-8 man I’ve ever seen), I believe White realizes the ceiling is high if he comes in prepared.
White is right.
Finney would get decimated at any decently high level in the UFC. So, no matter why he didn’t get the required experience, it doesn’t change the fact that he needs to get more before he can compete in the world’s No. 1 MMA promotion.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Finney get an opportunity as a late replacement over the next 6-10 months–even before the next season of the Contender Series. That’s especially true if he wins one or two fights between now and the next late-entry opportunity.
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