Interim Cage Warriors Welterweight Title Fight At Cage Warriors Showdown

Cage Warriors Official Announcement

Due to circumstances beyond our control the CWFC have decided to release the following statement about the future of the Cage Warriors Welterweight Title. As the current Cage Warriors/FightFest Welterweight Champion Forrest Petz will not be defending his Title on August 5th as planned and has decided to fight in the UFC instead on August 17th. We wish Forrest the best of luck in that bout, but have taken several steps to secure the future of our Title.

Forrest Petz was originally due to defend the CWFC/FightFest Title at Strike Force 6 against Arni "The Ice Viking" Isaksson but had to pull out due to injury. The CWFC team and FightFest understood the situation and as a result managed to secure another Title fight on August 5th in Texas. However this time Arni Isksson suffered an injury in training and was forced to withdraw. However the CW team managed to find a replacement for that bout in the form of Danny Rushton.

A week had passed in which both the CW team and Rushton's camp planned for Rushton to fly out to the States. However in the early hours of Thursday morning, the CW team received a call from FightFest promoter Corey Fischer stating that Forrest Petz will not be fighting on August 5th, due to him being selected to fight at the UFC "Ultimate Fight night" show on August 17th.

This meant Petz would yet again not be able to defend the Title he won at the FightFest show in Ohio on April 14th. So the CW team were forced into action and following talks with the FightFest promoter Corey Fischer, the CW management team have decided to create an interim Title bout between the ex-Champion Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy and Danny Rushton.

This fight will take place at Cage Warriors: Showdown on September 16th at the Octagon Centre, Sheffield over 3x5 minute rounds. The winner of this fight will then face Forrest Petz on a Cage Warriors or FightFest show, in either late November or early December for both the Cage Warriors and FightFest Titles.

However if Petz does not defend between those dates, he will be stripped of his CW (and most likely his FightFest Belt) and the winner of the Hardy/Rushton bout will receive the Cage Warriors Welterweight Title and become the new Cage Warriors Welterweight Champion. There will then be an eliminator in the USA for the FightFest Title and the winner of that bout will take on the Cage Warriors Title to unify the belts once more.

We wish to reiterate that we are not stripping Forrest Petz of the Cage Warriors Title now, as we respect the fact that a bout in the UFC is too good to pass over. But we are making plans in case Petz strikes a long term deal with the UFC and is unable to defend his Title for a long period of time, as this will be the 3rd CWFC Champion to fight in the UFC this year.

We hope this solution satisfies all concerned and we would like to thank those parties for their patience and understanding in this issue. We hope this “interim Title” bout will be an exciting addition to what should be a very promising show on September 16th and that the winner gets the chance to face the Champion at a later date.

You can now buy tickets for Cage Warriors and other MMA events from MMA Universe.
Click here for more details.