Despite Dana White’s brutal callout, Torrez Finney earns third shot at Contender Series

Torrez Finney hopes the third time is the charm when it comes to getting into the UFC.

On Thursday, following an initial post from Finney, MMA Fighting confirmed “The Punisher” will face Abdellah Er-Remy on episode eight of Contender Series, which takes place on Oct. 1.

This will be Finney’s third time on the show and second this season. In 2023, Finney scored a submission win over Yuri Panferov but failed to receive a contract offer. He tried again earlier this month on the second episode of the current Contender Series season, defeating Cam Rowston by unanimous decision, but once again UFC CEO Dana White declined to extend an offer and instead berated Finney for his performance in a clip that garnered headlines for its harshness.

“Finney, now you were here last year and my recommendation to you was to go out and get some experience,” White said after the event. “You’re young, you’re obviously talented, you’re now 9-0, [but] you got one fight. You went out in one year and fought one fight. I’m always brutally honest with this stuff, you’d 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 three or four fights this year, then come back to us and talk about the UFC.

“You gassed out tonight. You had a tough time getting through three 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.”

After White’s rant, Finney revealed that part of the reason he did not compete more often after his first attempt at Contender Series was that he was supposed to take part in the latest season of The Ultimate Fighter until a series of events got in the way. White actually addressed this at the most recent episode of Contender Series, acknowledging that perhaps he was too harsh on Finney.

“So what happened was, I guess he got picked to do The Ultimate Fighter, and then they told him he couldn’t fight for X amount of months, and then he ended up not getting picked,” White said. “I didn’t know that until tonight. He had a rough year.”

Finney is currently 9-0 in his MMA career with seven stoppage wins. Er-Ramy is 7-1 and most recently competed at PFL Europe in 2023, where he scored a first-round TKO win.