Warrior Promotions to Expand Into Fighter Management

Warrior Promotions (The UK based company behind the successful Cage Warriors Fighting Championships) are expanding and as a result are now venturing into other fields such as fighter management both in Mixed Martial Arts and other combat sports.

In just 18 months Warrior Promotions in-conjunction with Cage Warriors President Dougie Truman has been responsible for promoting some of the biggest Mixed Martial Arts events in the UK, and has further re-enforced Cage Warriors’ reputation of being a proving ground for top up and coming fighters. This has also helped to re-enforce Cage Warriors’ reputation as a respected international and professional event.

Due to the their professionalism and commitment Warrior Promotions has had the privilege of having many top MMA fighters at their Cage Warriors: Strike Force events; these fighters include such names as K-1 Hero’s veteran Antonio Silva, UFC TUF 3 winner Michael "The Count" Bisping, TUF 3 participant Ross "The Gladiator" Pointon, UFC veterans Jeff "The Snowman" Monson, Martin "The Hitman" Kampmann, Leigh Remedios and Pride FC veterans David Baron and Gregory Bouchelaghem. Also current Cage Warriors Welterweight Champion Forrest Petz has also made an appearance in the UFC. Nearly all of these athletes got their break in the UFC/Pride/K-1 because of their performances at Warrior Promotion events over last 18 months.

Also the first nine Cage Warriors shows saw UFC stars such as Alessio Sakara, Jorge Rivera, Gerald "The Finishing Machine" Strebendt and Ian "The Machine" Freeman fight inside the CWFC Octagonal Cage. Whilst Jean Silva and Gesias "JZ" Calvancanti have gone on to fight in the Japanese Pride and K-1 Hero’s events since fighting on Cage Warriors.

On top of the above achievements Warrior Promotions have also worked in-conjunction with Anthony McGann to promote the Cage
Warriors Pro Fight Team the Wolfslair Academy, which is a first class training facility based in Widnes. (nr Liverpool) Several Wolfslair Academy fighters have gone on to the UFC and their participation on Warrior Promotion based shows have been a key factor in their success.

Warrior Promotions have also taken the Cage Warriors brand and promoted it in numerous different directions, which has seen a clothing brand known as “2TUFF2TAP” be introduced and an online shop known as Warrior Shop which has been featured in magazines, Cage Warriors DVD’s and elsewhere. Also Warrior Promotions has created its own in house production crew and offers their services (as well as there 32ft Octagonal Cage and management experience) to other UK events.

As was mentioned earlier Warrior Promotions have also been pro-active in forging links with other MMA organisations both domestic and international, this has seen Warrior Promotions work with an array of different organisations such as House of Pain, FX3, Ultimate Force, “Its Showtime”, Too Hot To Handle, Fightsport International, Shooto Europe, World Pro Fighting Championships and more.

These working relationships have benefited all sides and has allowed UK fighters the opportunity to test their skills against top domestic and international talent both home and aboard. Warrior Promotions was even invited to send out a “UK team” to 2H2H: Road to Japan, which resulted in (Warrior Promotions’ own) Jim Wallhead winning the -83kg tournament and booking himself a ticket to Japan.

Most recently Warrior Promotions have joined forces with the Greatest Common Multiple (GCM) organisation from Japan, as Warrior Promotions and Cage Warriors joined the World Wide Cage Network. (WWCN) The aim of the WWCN is to promote fighters and spread and support the fighting business market by exchanging fighters of cage fight promotions in Europe, Australia, North America and Japan. WWCN's first goal in the future is to become a structural organization to help great fighters from this network step up the scene of their activities into big promotions like UFC. This will only help UK fighters to crack the international market.

Now Warrior Promotions look to solidify their commit to the UK MMA scene by expanding into full time fighter management. Already Warrior Promotions have signed 3 of the UK’s top up and coming MMA stars in the form of former Cage Warriors World Welterweight Champion Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy, House of Pain/Cage Gladiators British Welterweight Champion Jim Wallhead and Cage Warriors Bantamweight World Champion Paul McVeigh. Warrior Promotions also manage Coventry based Kickboxer Brett Healy and act as agents to other fighters and their management teams.

Warrior Promotions hope their growing reputation will attract an array of fighters who are looking for solid representation in anarchic world of UK MMA. For more information on this and other Warrior Promotions activities contact the Warrior Promotions President Andy Lillis at andylillis@cagewarriors.com or iandean@cagewarriors.com