Being a fan of Cage Warriors can be an odd experience. Unlike in other MMA promotions, where you’re dreaming of your favourite fighter climbing the rankings before winning the championship and holding onto it for years, it’s different in Cage Warriors. 

Of course, you want your favourite fighters to win fights and become champion, but above all else you want them to leave. 

While they do operate as a traditional MMA company, the ultimate goal for many who don the famous yellow gloves is to achieve enough success to parlay into opportunities with a major promotion, primarily the UFC. 

They hope that this is the first part of their story, not the end, so when the Cage Warriors chapter of a fighter’s career closes it’s usually cause for celebration. 

We saw such a moment last weekend in Manchester, as Luke Riley put a final exclamation point on his time with the company, finishing Tariel Abbasov in the second round at the BEC Arena, a venue that will forever be synonymous with his career. 

Ex-CW alumni Tom Aspinall, Paddy Pimblett, Molly McCann, Oban Elliott and Nathan Fletcher were all in attendance and Riley will now be looking to follow in their footsteps by inking a deal with the UFC. 

Rather fittingly, as Luke Riley left the arena on Saturday night thinking about the future, Cage Warriors and the fans were also thinking about the future. While much of the weekend was geared towards giving Riley a deserved send-off to the big time, the company also used their two events in Manchester to firmly push forward a number of fighters who represent the future of the promotion. 

In Manchester, a number of athletes from the California-based MMA Fight Academy were put in prominent positions to share some of Riley’s limelight. 

The San Diego gym, in its current guise, was developed through work between entertainment brand MOLA and Cage Warriors owner Graham Boylan, as a way of developing new stars from across the globe, and is home to prospects from across America and Europe. 

On Friday night, at the Unplugged event in front of an invite-only crowd, Anthony Orozco extended his undefeated professional record to 6-0 by dominating the experienced Andrey Augusto on the way to a unanimous decision victory (30-27 x3). 

A strong American grappler, Orozco main evented a Cage Warriors show for the first time at Unplugged following the loss of the Lightweight Championship contest between George Hardwick and Lucas Clay. 

There’s a mouthwatering showdown potentially down the line with fellow Welterweight Sean Clancy Jr. but a good next step for Orozco could be a matchup with Marco Doda who recently upset Manuel De Valle. 

The following night, Orozco’s teammates Teddy Stringer, Jack Humphries and Joe Fields all made their own statements as the gym went 4-0 for the weekend. 

Thrust into the co-main event spot for the first time, Teddy Stringer unleashed twelve months of frustration on veteran Antonio Sheldon in a career best performance, taking just 85 seconds to tap his opponent out with a Rear Naked Choke. 

Having spent 2024 experiencing multiple setbacks with opponents dropping out at short notice on multiple occasions or in the case of Darren Smith no-showing the weigh-ins, a bout against Sheldon represented a significant step up for Stringer especially given the seven month break between fights due to those cancellations. 

After a brief exchange, the 24-year-old clipped Sheldon, sending him to the canvas. Rather than rushing in, Stringer showed exceptional composure and maturity to take his back and cinch in a choke that quickly produced the submission. 

It would be good to see him compete regularly in 2025 and while the top of the lightweight division, arguably the most cut-throat in the company, takes shape, Stringer has the chance to continue to develop his skills rather than be catapulted too far too soon. 

Another experienced hand in Adam Shelley, who recently beat Simone Patrizi in Rome, may offer more of a challenge to the Chesterfield prospect than Sheldon did. 

While it took longer than 85 seconds for Jack Humphries to see off the previously undefeated Nik Beukema, the Dutchman eventually succumbing to a choke the late stages of the second round, his performance was no less emphatic than that of Stringer. 

The former IMMAF Silver Medallist displayed skills in every facet of the sport before finishing Beukema, with a spinning wheel kick being the highlight of a contest played out in front of a rowdy army of “The Ripper” fans. 

When you watch fighters at the early stages of their professional careers it can be easy to get carried when they are continuously stopping opponents, but Jack Humphries feels like a special talent. The way he moves around the octagon, commands range and patterns his attacks is levels above fighters far more experienced in the sport. 

It feels like you can already pencil him in for a Cage Warriors title reign and a subsequent UFC call-up. 

In a bantamweight division ripe with talent, it’ll be interesting to see how he is matched up this year with fellow undefeated prospects Ollie Sarwa and Daniel Bainbridge both competing soon. 

In the toughest outing of the evening for the MMA Fight Academy representatives, Joe Fields edged out Enrico Di Gangi in a split decision victory (29-28 x 2, 28-29). 

Fields, a standout in the Jiu-Jitsu scene in North England, who often splits his time between San Diego and Middlesbrough, had to call on all of his mat experience to keep the Italian at bay. 

Di Gangi, who has competed as high up the weight divisions as Featherweight, troubled Fields throughout the contest both on the feet and in the grappling exchanges. With a clear physical advantage, he was able to simply overpower his younger counterpart in many of those situations, while his strikes had far more behind them than an average flyweight. 

Had Di Gangi possessed Fields’ level of patience, he may have even been able to finish the fight in the third round when he sent the Hull native stumbling backwards but whiffed on the follow-up flying knee, which allowed Fields to take the fight to the ground for the majority of the round. 

While he got the rub of the green on the scorecards – only the scoring of the first round was agreed on by all three judges – given Di Gangi’s strength and resume (he holds a win over recent title challenger Alessandro Giordano), this represented a huge victory for Fields. 

It also leaves him in a position where the level of opponent he faces next can’t be viewed as a stepback. Luckily, the Cage Warriors flyweight division has an array of “upper mid-card” opposition to choose from including Davide Scarano, Amir Malekpour and Dylan Hazan. 

Whatever comes next for those four from the MMA Fight Academy, their progression will be pivotal to the next cycle of Cage Warriors. 

With Riley on his way out, Kennedy Freeman already signed to the UFC, PrizeFighter winner Shirzad Qadrian having links with the Nurmagomedov camp and current champions Liam Gittins, Harry Hardwick, George Hardwick seemingly one win away from all receiving the call, gaps at the top of the roster will start to appear. 

It isn’t just the four lads who starred in Manchester that are capable of leading the latest era of the promotion either. Highly touted amateur Shay Ingram scored a decisive decision win on the card while Nik Bagley, Jawany Scott and Tariq Pell compete on Friday night in what could be breakout bouts for the trio. 

Welterweight starlet Sean Clancy Jr., already one of the promotion’s major ticket sellers in Scotland, seems destined for greatness and is set to headline the Braehead Arena at CW 187 in April. An incredibly well-rounded prospect with the swagger to back up his talents, Clancy faces 13-4 Brazilian Italo Gomes in the main event of that show. 

The final event of this current stretch for the promotion sees a return to Dublin where two of Ireland’s most promising competitors will take the stage. 

Paddy McCorry, the technical middleweight who featured on last year’s edition of The Ultimate Fighter, faces Ghassan Abdenabi as he looks to manoeuvre himself into a title shot later this year. 

Meanwhile, serial finisher Solomon Simon takes on Christian Iorga, who took George Hardwick to the cards on the Boro man’s return last year, If Simon can finish Iorga, it’ll be a hell of a statement. 

On the same night, undefeated prospects Leon Armes and Scott Harvey will defend their records against each other in a match up that could define the future of the featherweight division. 

Though the coming months could see us waving goodbye to a number of our favourite fighters, it could also see a number of new favourites emerge. 

The future is bright. 

Photo Credits: Dolly Clew/@DollyClew, Cage Warriors