Devil’s Advocate: Cage Warriors Returns
The MMA community has responded in a unanimously positive way to the news that Cage Warriors is returning. Here, our man PG explains why the community are so happy about this, and Jimbo takes a look at some legitimate concerns which may have been forgotten in the excitement…
DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
SUBJECT: CAGE WARRIORS RETURNS.
PG AND JIMBO DISCUSS.
PG.
Cage Warriors is returning and I for one can’t wait. Arguably one of the biggest MMA promotions outside of the Americas and the biggest in Europe.
Cage Warriors has brought us the likes of Conor McGregor and Michael Bisping, two of the most outspoken fighters in the UFC. Scottish MMA fans can thank Cage Warriors for putting Steven Ray up against the best in the Europe and for paving his way into the UFC. Almost a year ago Joanna Jedrzejczyk fought and defeated Rosi Sexton at Cage Warriors 69. Jedrzejczyk is now the UFC ladies straw weight champion.
What I love about Cage Warriors is that it’s a truly international affair. Jordan, Bahrain, Ireland, Scotland, England, America, Lebanon, Ukraine, Dubai, Al Fujairah, Wales, Denmark and Chechnya have all hosted a Cage Warriors event. Yes, you read correctly Chechnya!
Promotions like the UFC make a big deal of putting on a card anywhere outside of the Americas whilst Cage Warriors were making regular trips to Jordan and planning an event in Baghdad.
For most Scottish fighters the local promotions are the reality and the UFC a dream. Cage Warriors fills that gap between the two and is a place for the European elite to gather before the very best make it the UFC. It is a chance at the ideal.
No one has filled the void left by Cage Warriors and it appears as though no one is aiming to. Without Cage Warriors in some format this leaves European MMA in a precarious situation. Where do fighters aspire to be in a realistic world. A jump from a local promotion to the UFC might come along once in a blue moon. Perhaps being a hometown fighter taking a fight on short notice for example. But with Cage Warriors back in the game it gives European fighters something to aim for which is more realistically in reach than the UFC.
Cage Warriors will also boost European MMA once again back into the mainstream. Instead of European fans getting overly excited about the UFC perhaps the will get moderately excited about a Cage Warriors event in their home town. The exposure fighters will get will only reap massive benefits for the MMA industry as well. The more people exposed will equate to more people training or wanting to train and the MMA coaching industry will receive a boost also.
Cage Warriors also offers something a lot of aspiring professional fighters will not find elsewhere. A multi fight contract. Being a fighter is like being an electrician in that one needs electricity and the other needs a promotion willing to pay them. Without the promotion a professionally paid fighter becomes just another martial artist and without electricity the electrician becomes totally redundant.
The alternative is a European MMA landscape without an elite MMA organisation. This would be an odd place for the MMA scene in Europe to find itself in. With nowhere to go aspiring professional fighters who may have had what it takes to make it as an elite fighter may decide to pack it in before they’ve truly given it a real go. Europe produces some of the best judokas and martial artists in the world yet this hasn’t automatically converted into top MMA talent. But the tides are shifting. With a good enough take down defence MMA is shifting towards a striking era. Coaching is improving in Europe and the skills fighters are developing are purely based on the skills coaches are also developing. This wouldn’t be possible without growth and expansion. With Cage Warriors returning we can look forward to a total boost in the promotion, expansion, brand and skill level of European MMA. I for one can’t wait
JIMBO
Whilst the return of Cage Warriors to the European MMA scene is undoubtedly a positive as laid out above, there are still concerns that need to be addressed and questions that nobody seems to be asking, presumably caught up in the inevitable excitement that a return brings.
Of primary concern to me would be the issue of reliability and consistency. Cage Warriors were doing fantastic work before they just disappeared off the face of the scene late last year. When that happened, exclusively signed Cage Warriors fighters were left in a state of uncertainty, forced to scramble for fights on other shows at what I can only assume was far less a purse than they had signed with Cage Warriors to guarantee – the whole reason for an exclusive deal. Also the issue of the TV deal Cage Warriors signed – to sign a TV deal only to then stop producing shows may well make TV companies think about investing in the product, which will obviously hurt the growth of the sport in the UK.
It goes without saying that a healthy Cage Warriors is great for the European MMA scene, but what is in place to stop that happening again? What guarantees are there that they won’t just cease operations again, leaving fighters who sign with them left stranded again? If I was a fighter or a fighter’s manager, I’d simply have to consider that if I was contemplating inking a deal with Cage Warriors.
The plan to take time to really get going and focus on a start in 2016 is fine, but where does that leave fighters until then? Graham Boylan has criticised other European shows on the MMA Hour and even said there is “nowhere else” for fighters to fight in Europe; if that’s the case then why wait until 2016?
Only pointing out problems and offering no solution (at least for a long time) is not helping the MMA scene at all and seems very “holier than thou” – at least the other promotions such as BAMMA are giving higher level fighters opportunities, so to just dismiss their work when offering nothing as an alternative seems backward. Are exclusively signed fighters now back under Cage Warriors contracts, and expected to scramble for individual fights on smaller promotions until CW starts running again? That needs answering.
CW can either let their top fighters sign on with other big promotions (and of course lose them) or can retain them until they themselves return and only let them ink individual fights at a time with non rival promotions – neither seem a great option.
Another issue for me is the fact they appear to have returned much the same as before – sure the financial backers have changed but it’s still the same man, Graham Boylan, as the face of the promotion. It is often the case in combat sports that fighters will “retire” simply to try and generate buzz about a “return”. Now, I like to think that is not the stunt Cage Warriors have pulled here but it’s still something to consider. If we assume that the ceasing of operations was indeed legitimate and not part of a plan to hype a “comeback” then it’s vital to ask what has changed?
Cage Warriors has become an excellent feeder league for the UFC and that can not be disputed. However, will they take more time and devote more attention and money to building stars? Yes, Conor McGregor and Joanna Champion fought on Cage Warriors, but before they signed with the UFC, they were not stars at all. It is simply revisionist history to say that Cage Warriors built stars. They didn’t. If you were to credit CW for making a star of say Conor McGregor than you’d have to give the same amount of credit to CC and IFC and any other promotion he fought on.
If you need any more evidence; Conor McGregor fought on a fight pass undercard in his debut and nobody knew who he was outside of European MMA hardcores. Conor initially built himself up with appearances on the MMA Hour – why didn’t Cage Warriors give him that outlet or any platform at all to get his name out there? They showcased the best European fighters and the UFC made them stars. BAMMA has far more star power and is better at building “name” fighters in the UK than Cage Warriors, which undoubtedly showcases more skilled fighters in better fights. Will Cage Warriors become better at building stars under this new regime or will they remain as a place to watch good fighters who may become stars one day in other promotions?
Will the focus be on more European fighters? Cage Warriors are very much marketing themselves as Europe’s promotion and that’s excellent. But if that’s the case, will they stop bringing over American fighters such as Jesse Taylor and Jim Alers to defeat top European fighters? They need to do something different from the other promotions to stand out and to grow, and bringing over UFC prospects or has beens from America/Brazil to defeat Europe’s top prospects makes them look a bit like UFC-lite and directly contradicts their claim to be the best place for European MMA prospects to get to the UFC.
I will reiterate, a healthy Cage Warriors is fantastic for European MMA, no doubt about it. But that doesn’t mean that what they offer and have previously offered is perfect and above reproach. Even if there is no competition to be Europe’s top MMA promotion (that is untrue, but it appears to be the belief of the Cage Warriors team) then they must strive to improve just for themselves and the sake of the fighters. All of these concerns presented may prove incorrect and unwarranted, but they are questions that need to be asked, even if nobody is willing to ask them.
