A fight on the horizon: Dreams tested, reality delivered in the brutal gauntlet of ‘Dana White’s Contender Series’

As flyweights Lone’er Kavanagh and An Tuan Ho prepared to kick off Season 8 of “Dana White’s Contender Series” last Tuesday night, both set remarkably similar expectations for themselves.

Both were undefeated professional fighters. Both had identical 6-0 MMA records. Both were out to earn a spot in the UFC and make their dreams come true. Each of them explained it all to us, the audience, over B-roll footage of them hitting heavy bags and performing various athletic feats in an empty gym.

“I think I belong in this world because I worked hard, I sacrificed a lot of things and this is what I was supposed to do,” Ho said during his pre-fight video montage. “Fighting in the UFC is going to allow me to fulfill all the goals that I’ve had, all the dreams that I’ve had, all the visions that I’ve had as a kid. It’s going to mean a lot to me.”

As Ho underwent his final check before entering the cage, UFC commentator Laura Sanko observed that, given his previous fights, Ho was “UFC ready right now.”

“You could plug him in and play him in that flyweight division so easily and he would do very well,” Sanko said.

And for the first two minutes of his fight against Kavanagh, that appeared to be the case. Ho looked quick and sharp in the exchanges of blows, at one point unleashing a right punch on the decorated kickboxer Kavanagh.

Midway through the first round, Kavanagh landed a perfectly timed left hook, knocking Ho unconscious before he hit the canvas.

Seasoned viewers of this show didn’t need to be told what all this meant. Kavanagh launched into a brief celebration inside the cage before quickly locating UFC president Dana White and walking over to take a bow. White scribbled down his notes and then presented them to Kavanagh to see, a post-fight report that consisted of just two words: “Holy shit.”

This sealed the fate of the fight. Kavanagh would be rewarded for the win with a standard UFC entry-level contract. Ho would essentially disappear from view as soon as he was revived and helped out of the cage.

That’s how it goes on “Dana White’s Contender Series” (often abbreviated to Contender Series or simply DWCS). Two fighters enter the cage. One wins and the other loses. But winning isn’t enough. The fighters have to win and look good to impress White, as well as UFC matchmakers Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard. They find out whether or not they’ve achieved that amorphous goal at the end of each episode, as White announces their fates one by one during the live broadcast.

Increasingly, this is how fighters are finding their way to the UFC. Launched in 2017 as additional content for the UFC’s streaming platform, UFC Fight Pass, DWCS is now the primary channel for MMA fighters hoping to compete in the sport’s biggest event…