Who is Waldo Cortes-Acosta, the Dominican UFC fighter who defeated Jared Vanderaa at UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs. Allen?

Waldo Cortes-Acosta joins the ever-growing list of fighters coming through Dana White's Contender Series after his UFC debut at UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs. Allen.

Cortes-Acosta represents the Dominican Republic and fights out of Phoenix, Arizona. The 31-year-old has fought at heavyweight throughout his young professional mixed martial arts career.

Cortes-Acosta's UFC debut matched him up against six-fight veteran Jared Vanderaa, who was on a four-fight skid. Cortes-Acosta came out on top after a tightly-contested three rounds that saw Vanderaa pepper his opponent with leg kicks.

It was Cortes-Acosta's footwork and boxing that kept him in the match to ultimately earn him a unanimous decision victory that maintained his unbeaten professional record.

After previously dabbling in professional boxing, Waldo Cortes-Acosta made the switch to MMA. He first fought for Arizona's regional promotion RUF MMA. He then made a big move to Bellator only to fight once before signing on with Legacy Fighting Alliance.

At LFA, the Dominican found the most success as he fought for the title in only his second LFA bout. He knocked out Thomas Petersen at LFA 129 to win the vacant LFA heavyweight championship.

The LFA title-holder then made his debut in Dana White's Contender Series, where a first-round knockout of Brazilian Danilo Suzart earned him a UFC contract.

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Waldo Cortes-Acosta explains the difference between his UFC and DWCS fights

After extending his professional record to an unbeaten 8-0, Waldo Cortes-Acosta highlighted the difference between his UFC win and Dana White's Contender Series [DWCS] win.

He spoke in a post-fight interview about having to impress from the get-go at DWCS to warrant getting a contract.

"Very different, 'cause when you come for Contender [DWCS], you basically want to take someone's head off, you want to finish the fight, you want to impress, you want to get that contract."

'Salsa Boy' then spoke about the different pace of a UFC fight and the need to be more cautious in his approach.

"Here, when you come into this kind of fight, it's different. You have to be more intelligent, you have to be more paced. You need to entice the other fighter and see what- make the fighter feel like he's suffering. What you saw was a different fighter. A fighter that danced, did a little salsa, that maybe played with his head a little bit, I kinda let it loose a little bit."

Waldo Cortes-Acosta also mentioned that he would remain calm as it is only the beginning of his journey and stated his intent to keep going.

Watch his complete interview on Twitter below: