LAS VEGAS – Stepping into the cage for his third Dana White’s Contender Series fight, Torrez Finney knew he wasn’t leaving the UFC Apex without a contract to fight in the world’s premier organization.
In fact, Finney (10-0) already felt like a UFC fighter before he picked up a first-round TKO win over Abdellah Er-Ramy. It was Finney’s third victory on DWCS, a first in the show’s history.
“I’m going to be honest with you, along with my teammate Trevor Peek, being able to go through a lot of these experiences with him – I’m going to be honest with you, I feel like I was already UFC,” Finney told reporters during a post-fight news conference. “When you fight three times on Contender Series, that’s literally, you get a four-fight deal (in the UFC). The heck, I’ve already done three of them, so I already feel like I was in the UFC.
“Going through the walk, all this stuff – I felt comfortable. I was like, I’ve done this enough times. When that UFC debut (comes), obviously, there’s some more added things to that week and to that day, but it’ll be the same for me. It’s like I’ve already looked forward to this. I know what I’m ready for.”
Even though he felt at home, Finney actually wasn’t until UFC CEO Dana White finally extended the undefeated middleweight a contract offer after his third victory. It took a decision, a submission, and a TKO to convince the boss that he was ready to enter the promotion.
Despite being denied twice before, Finney said victory was his primary focus against Er-Ramy (7-2), and he had no intention of deviating from his game plan just to impress the boss as some fighters often do on the show.
“For myself, I said, you know, we’re just going to go out here and do me,” Finney said. “The W is the thing that matters the most. I always go out here and I always have the W as the top of my list. As long as I was going to go out there to win, everything else was going to play into it self, and I just made sure of that. I was like, if we go out here and just do Torrez Finney, nobody can deny you.”
