Cage Warriors USA: Battle Royale - A Total Shambles?

Oh dear. It seems that Cage Warriors recent attempt at entering the American MMA market could have been a massive shambles last weekend, as the event was shut down with several fights apparently left to run. Rumours are abound, and fingers are being pointed at the Florida Boxing Commission (who oversaw the event).

So, what actually happened? Well, we're still awaiting the official statement from the Promoters, but in the meantime some key players have put forward their views on the subject...

Nathan Leverton and Jim Wallhead talk about what really happened at Cage Warriors USA: Battle Royale last Saturday. Below is a quote from the Cage Warriors forum...

Nathan Leverton wrote:

"Florida boxing commission 1 - CageWarriors and the MMA comunity 0

Probably shouldn't do this but....

The commission is f**king ridiculous, they pretty much took over the event and ran it in to the ground. They shut it down before the end and wouldn't let the last two fights go on so Dre and Dan were left waiting to go out not knowing that the plug had been pulled. Can't even begin to tell you the crazy sh*t they put us through, you can't even take a pi** without them being there (I ain't joking, I mean that literally).

Weigh ins day before and everything the day of the show seemed to be about taking as much time as possible to do everything, leaving the fighters in as bad a state as possible and generally acting the bully boy. Well, at least the commission got paid and walked off with 1000s of dollars. F**** 'em, won't ever take anyone to fight in Florida again.

Jim was very tired and lost 29-28 on a close decision.

Greg did a blinder and got a split decision. Everyone said it was fight of the night. We weren't allowed to watch; we were sat in locker room (with the armed poice officers!) and no food as the commission had confiscated everyone's snacks.

What a joke.

On the other side of everything, the promoters looked after us better than I could ever imagine and are stand up guys.

Too tired and frustrated to think.

Nathan"

Jim Wallhead wrote:

"alright guys i just feel as if i need to let u know a few things and details from my point of view of recent events.

1st off, we had a crappy long connection flight after long drive to gatwick,on arrival to florida we were met by promoters tommy & dave who in my opinion are two amazing guys and promoters. They treated us better than u could imagine, straight up. We have been put up in a luxury house like a palace and supplied with all food and water we needed whilst running us around and pretty much spoiling us.

It was tremendous treatment and in my opinion if it was not for the Boxing Commission, Cage Warriors USA would have been an amazing show.

Basically becuase of the flight the night before the weigh-in i had major water retention and was weighing 184lbs, which by my standards is a bit heavy (for the night before a weigh-in) But i dropped the weight quite easily and was on target for the weigh-in at 5pm.

However i dod not actually weigh-in until 7pm as we had to spend 2 hours filling in forms, having medicals done (which included doing star jumps whilst faint and dehydrated) We were also interviewed by other people there and had to sit through instructions from the commission before we were allowed on the scales.

Then the next day when arriving at the venue at 5pm we were told we could not bring in any food and my last meal was at 3pm. I did not get to fight until gone 11.30 as the schduled fight time was 7.30 and the show was held up due to a traffic accident outside the venue. We also had restrictions placed on the stuff we could drink and had commissioners making sure we could not leave the locker room all night.

As for the explanation of my fight, i beileve i won the first round with continous sprawling and stibbing out his game. However by round 2 i had totally blown (to my suprise as in my opinnion i was in the best condition i have ever been in) and Nathan told me at the end of the fight that my eyes were glazed at this point.

I have got no marks on me, the whole fight he just grabbed onto my legs, he was a strong wrestler and took me down a couple of times, i almost subbed him a couple of time and caused some damage on him. My stand-up was poor due to constentrating too much on defending the takedown, so all-in-all i'm relaly disappointed as i beileve i am the better fighter and if i was not gassed i would of won.

I lost 29-28 (x3) on arriving back to the changing rooms i also then discovered Dan and Andre's fight had been scrapped due to it being past midnight and the commission telling people the insurance had expired, however there was no commissioners to be seen at that point and no-one knew what was happening.

At this point i would quickly like to big-up tommy, dave, kainer, samantha, thresa and everyone invloved with CW USA as iin my opinion, if it was not for the commission the show would have been a raving success. Also a big congrats to greg Loughran on his victory, i heard it was fight of the night but i was not allowed to see it as i was locked in the locker room by the commission.

I hope this has shined some light on my experience and my dissapointment, but i will be back to winning ways soon and showing i'm not an unfit mo'fo..."

Source: www.cagewarriors.com