After watching the finale of the fifth season of Dana White’s Contender Series on November 2nd, I am not too sure what the criteria are for a contract. Jonas Bilharinho had the first-ever wheel kick TKO in DWCS history. In my understanding, it is the type of stuff that I visualize, at least if not the boss, to want to see more and gets me off of my seat and definitely to sign in the UFC because he can do things like that even that late in a fight contradicting to what Dana White said about it “The kid’s stock went up tonight. He’s 9-1; maybe one of these other organizations pick him up, which we talked about before. They’re not very bright, so they probably won’t. He’ll pick up a couple of fights in LFA or one of those types of shows, and we’ll retake a look at him. He definitely – landing that kick tonight put him in a good spot. He’s a free agent right now, he can do what he wants, and we’ll look at him again.” (Hannoun and Hathaway). Maybe it’s all about Migu and money with more overseas fans; a new five-year Chinese media deal started on March 6th, 2021 with the UFC “Migu will carry an annual schedule of at least 12 pay-per-view UFC fights, plus 30 other top-tier events. It will also distribute Dana White’s Contender Series, a fighting series that showcases emerging talent, including some that train in Shanghai.” (Novy-Williams). China did have its first champion in the UFC women’s strawweight division with Weili Zhang. It just seems that for the finale and maybe in general, with a visible increase in the number of Chinese fighters on DWCS to earn a contract, six have been featured. Foremost, Maheshate earned a victory to become the first Chinese fighter to win on the show and then made a contract on the same night. In this fifth installment of the series, he is going to prefer Chinese fighters more, even though Maheshate was a +475 underdog against the at the time undefeated Achilles Estremadura, I take nothing away from that, and in a way, I felt he was warranting of a contract too. I just was astonished by Bilharinho being left out, and I believe that Dana is trying to pick his fighters more for what fans he wants to have because China is a big market, and he can because his name is in the show, and he is the president and operates it. I just was always under the notion that displaying a stunning knockout like that at the DWCS is what it is all about, and for him to throw that off shows me that I’m false. Honestly, for Bilharinho, perhaps the nonsigning is a blessing in disguise because he still has that highlight on his resume to go to any great promotion like Bellator or PFL, presumably. Regardless, he also will have that tiny extra chip that he did on the show, literally what other fighters would dream of accomplishing, and Dana was still just not impressed with his overall performance.
https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2021/11/ufc-news-dana-white-spinning-wheel-kick-winner-not-signed-contract-dwcs
https://sports.yahoo.com/ufc-five-chinese-media-deal-161337967.html
