Promotion War! - MMAUniverse.com

Tensions between top UK MMA promotions Cage Warriors and Cage Rage have boiled over.

A week or so ago it became apparent that Cage Rage went behind Cage Warriors’ back to sign Paul Daley for Cage Rage 19: Fearless and in doing so decapitated the headline fight from a Cage Warriors event specifically held to showcase Daley and his team in their own home town of Nottingham.

And now Cage Warriors Vice President , Andy Lillis, has revealed that he suspects anti Cage Warrors forum “Trolling” to be the work of one of Cage Rage’s top brass.

For those of you that are unaware, CageWarriors.com hosts the UK’s leading MMA forum and thus is a hub for discussion of the latest MMA related gossip, news info and often inflammatory opinions. However the opinions and statements of two particular forum members drew the attention of the CageWarriors.com staff

Today Andy Lillis started a thread on the CageWarriors.com forum which was entitled "Sad Day For UK MMA Solidarity Between Promoters." In which he said:

“I am saddened today at the lack of solidarity between UK MMA promotions. It goes a bit further than that. As most of you are aware the first show that I put together was Cage Warriors Strike Force: UK vs France. Most of you are aware that the show ended in what was called a "riot", most of you who were there know that it was far from a riot, a fight broke out, and yes people were hurt, but no complaint was made to the police, it was no more than a scuffle after the event.

One person in particular made a big issue out of this his name was "Hatchet Man" he called for us to be banned, he said that Cage Warriors was a disgrace, he told us that his pregnant girlfriend had been punched in the face and many other things as he posted below. He gained much sympathy for what happened to his girlfriend, whilst blackening the Cage Warriors name. But today “Hatchet Man” and “Sheriff Fatman” are proved to be the same person, and from another MMA promotion”

Apparently Lillis did a “WHOIS” search on domain names of the e-mail addresses used to register Hatchet Man and Sheriff Fatman’s forum accounts. He found out that hellsditch.co.uk (Hatchet Man) and mrxl.co.uk (Sheriff Fatman) are both are owned by the same person, Cage Rage Co-Promoter Andrew Greer.

If indeed Andy Greer is behind the anti Cage Warriors remarks, it is dissapointing but also worth putting in to perspective. Cage Warriors Strike Force: UK vs France was way back in May 2005 and posting faceless remarks on forums is nothing new. However it does indicate that the special relationship shared by Cage Rage and Cage Warriors is not what it once was, and infact Cage Rage have been gunning for Cage Warriors for quite some time. This might come as a surprise to those who know it was in fact Cage Warriors that gave Cage Rage it’s first bunk up into the world of Mixed Martial Arts promoting back in September 2002.

Cage Rage is now the number one MMA organisation in the UK but Cage Warriors excel in their own way. MMA Promotion is a cutthroat business and now it appears the knives are out.

This is going to run and run. To keep up with the latest check out this thread on the CageWarriors.com Forum and of course stay tuned to MMAUniverse!

Image 1: Left to right, Cage Warriors V.P. Andy Lillis, Cage Warriors and TUF 3 Champion Michael Bisping, Cage Warriors President Dougie Truman.

Images 2: Sandwiched between Ring Girls, Cage Rage Co-Promoters Andy Greer (left) and Dave O'Donnell (right)