All Five Winners Ink UFC Contracts on Week 6 of Dana White’s Contender Series

Yusaku Kinoshita did his part to connect the talent pipeline from his native Japan to Dana White’s Contender Series.

The onetime Pancrase headliner was one of five competitors to nail down an Ultimate Fighting Championship contract on Week 6 of DWCS, as he buried Jose Henrique Souza with punches in the third round of their welterweight showcase on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Souza (5-1) checked out 43 seconds into Round 3.

Kinoshita (6-1)—the first Japanese fighter to ink a UFC deal on the series—successfully navigated three-inch height and 7.5-inch reach deficits, built a lead with a steady diet of leg kicks and answered punching volleys from the gangly Brazilian with some of his own. An inadvertent eye poke from Souza resulted in a brief pause early in the third round. Moments after the restart, Kinoshita slipped a right hand and countered with a devastating left hook. Souza, 20, hit the deck in a dazed state and could not withstand the barrage of standing-to-ground punches that greeted him on the canvas.

Related » DWCS Week 6 Round-by-Round Scoring

In addition to the 22-year-old Kinoshita, the UFC signed middleweight Sedriques Dumas, lightweight Mateusz Rebecki, featherweight Blake Bilder and strawweight Victoria Dudakova.

Dumas dispatched Allstars Training Center representative Matej Penaz with a standing guillotine choke in the first round of their middleweight affair. Dumas (7-0) drew the curtain 47 seconds into Round 1, authoring the third-fastest submission in Dana White’s Contender Series history.

Penaz (6-1) was the victim of an all-out blitz. Dumas connected with an overhand left, followed it into the clinch and landed a seemingly effortless takedown. He briefly climbed to full mount, caught the guillotine when Penaz scrambled and switched to a high-elbow grip after they moved to a standing position along the fence.

It was the second sub-minute stoppage of Dumas’ career.

Meanwhile, Rebecki put away Rodrigo Lidio with a no-hooks rear-naked choke in the first round of their lightweight encounter. Rebecki (16-1)—who has not tasted defeat in nearly eight years—slammed the door 3:05 into Round 1 and extended his winning streak to 13 fights.

Lidio (12-3) failed to make the most of a seven-inch reach advantage but managed to sneak in a partially blocked head kick inside the first 30 seconds. An unfazed Rebecki closed the distance, secured multiple takedowns and ultimately established his dominance from top position. He progressed to side control, snaked his arms around the neck and prompted the tapout while mostly situated in Lidio’s side.

The loss snapped Lidio’s run of consecutive victories at four.

Elsewhere, Bilder remained undefeated, as the reigning Cage Fury Fighting Championships titleholder submitted Tristar Gym export Alex Morgan with a rear-naked choke in the first round of their featherweight pairing. Bilder (7-0-1) brought it to a close 3:15 into Round 1.

Morgan (11-5) set a leisurely pace and fired off leg kicks, jabs and multi-punch combinations, all while controlling the center of the cage. Bilder buckled his knees with a surgical straight right hand, jumped immediately to the back and cinched the choke for the finish after a brief scramble and a few adjustments to the grip.

Bilder, 32, has rattled off five straight wins.

Finally, Dudakova persevered through an apparent knee injury and kept her perfect professional record intact, as she laid claim to a unanimous decision over Maria Silva in a three-round women’s strawweight clash. All three cageside judges scored it the same: 29-28 for Dudakova (6-0), the biggest underdog on the card.

Silva (8-1) enjoyed brief bursts of success throughout the match and handled her business in the middle stanza, where she struck for a takedown and achieved full mount. However, she could not keep the determined Dudakova at bay. The unbeaten Russian prospect executed multiple takedowns in the first and third rounds, piled up nearly 10 minutes of control time and applied her ground-and-pound with varying degrees of intensity.