Things have been going very well for Kody Steele throughout his MMA career, but his Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS) debut has hit a bit of speedbump. The veteran grappler has been one of the top prospects in the sport for quite some time now and the writing was on the wall from the start, as he came in to MMA as a Combat Jiu-Jitsu world champion. He had a relatively short amateur career, as he only competed twice in 2021 and won both of his fights by knockout. With a pair of dominant performances it was quite clear that Steele was ready for the step up to professional competition and he made that transition in the following year.
Steele continued that success on the regional MMA circuit and over the course of several fights for Fury FC, he began to make a name for himself. He put together a phenomenal run over the course of the next few years and by the time that he had reached 6-0 in his professional career, it was clear that the UFC was going to come calling. It didn’t take long for that to happen either, as the promotion gave him the same opportunity that dozens of current UFC fighters have had in the past. Kody Steele was set to fight on DWCS and with that, he would get an opportunity to compete for a coveted contract.
Steele was booked to face Quemuel Ottoni on the 5th week of Season 8 of DWCS, which took place on September 10th, 2024. Both men weighed in and on the day of the fight, Steele was busy making his final preparations and getting his hands wrapped when he got some unfortunate news. His opponent Ottoni had withdrawn from the fight and it would not be possible to find a replacement on such short notice. After a brief period of hope where he was told that the fight was back on, Ottoni withdrew for good and Steele was left without a fight.
Dana White and the other minds behind DWCS made good on their part of the deal for Steele in fairness, as they will still be paying him both his show money and win money for the fight. That’s really the best they can do in the scenario and it at least means that Steele still gets paid for doing everything correctly. It’s a positive but it will undoubtedly still be a very frustrating experience for Steele, who was the favorite coming into this fight and likely would have secured a UFC contract with a win.
Kody Steele announced that his DWCS debut was cancelled in a recent post to his official Instagram account: