Cage Warriors to return with three shows in September
Cage Warriors is coming back in September with a triple-header of events being planned for September 24, 25 and 26.
The promotion’s president Graham Boylan made the announcement with a tweet that briefly laid out his plans. Following the tweet, he confirmed to the news to MMA Junkie.
“Things are fun, in the sense that I love (expletive) chaos,” Boylan said to MMA Junkie. “It’s Christmas time to me, and I just decided to stick myself into more chaos by deciding to run three events, back-to-back.”
The reason behind having three shows in a row is to simply get as many fighters back into action after being off for a lengthy time due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“For me, it is a no-brainer for us,” Boylan explained. “We’ve been speaking to arenas and they’ve been telling us they’re not expecting crowds, or arena shows with big crowds, this side of Christmas. So when we’re hearing that from the biggest arenas in the world, telling us these things, we’re trying to pre-empt what we can do to keep the organization running, and to keep the roster busy. For some of the fighters, they’re getting no income right now. They need to compete. They need to earn money.
“With restrictions lifting in the UK and things starting to ease, we’re still three months until these show dates. So by the time these show dates come, things could ease up again. So for now it’s a behind-closed-doors event.”
The promotion will have guidelines and procurers in place for coronavirus testing, some of which are based from their event in March. Fighters will be required to check into the host hotel, be tested and then remain isolated until the results are confirmed. Boylan also added that Cage Warriors has secured a company that can turn back COVID test results within 24 hours.
Also with the coronavirus guidelines constantly changing, Cage Warriors may likely return with no fans in attendance. If that’s the case, it won’t make a difference as the promotion is all ready to go. Right now the focus is on booking three stacked cards that will be streamed live on UFC Fight Pass.
“We’ve got three spreadsheets of fights we want to put on, but we haven’t spoken to the guys who we want to fight yet. Ian’s got a busy week or two ahead!” Boylan laughed. “We’ve already provisionally matched 70% of each night, and it’s a case of just contacting the managers and the camps and getting a yes or a no.There will probably be a maximum of 10 fights per card.”
