Former Cage Warriors middleweight champion Matt Bonner is back at 185 pounds, and right back in the championship mix, after his latest eye-catching victory.
Bonner finished Brazilian veteran Alan Carlos via second-round knockout at Cage Warriors 147 to claim the 13th win of his career as he reignited his middleweight career after a brief trip down to welterweight didn’t work out as planned.
Bonner had previously picked up back-to-back wins at sub-180-pound catchweight bouts before losing out to Oban Elliott in his first official bout at 170 pounds.
But, at Cage Warriors 147 at the BT Sport studios in Stratford, London, Bonner was back at his natural weight class, and back to his best as he stalked Carlos around the cage before eventually dropping, then finishing, the Brazilian in the second round.
Bonner forced Carlos back toward the cage, unloaded with hooks, and connected with a big left that dropped Carlos to the canvas. “The Beast” briefly raised his hands in celebration but, after quickly realizing that more work needed to be done, the Liverpudlian dropped to the canvas and finished his man with a flurry of ground strikes to force referee Marc Goddard to dive in and wave off the fight at 2:02 mark.
Bonner’s victory topped the first portion of Cage Warriors’ latest “Unplugged” show from the BT Sport studios in Stratford, London, with three other fights also producing finishes.
Team Renegade’s Matty Byfield snuffed out the wrestling threat of Spain’s Daniel Ladero before finishing him with unanswered ground strikes mid-way through the second round of their light heavyweight matchup, while Mush Aslani needed just one punch to finish Adam Darby in their welterweight bout.
Aslani lined up his man and landed big with a huge overhand right that had Darby looking badly rocked. Such was the impact of the shot, and Darby’s physical reaction to it, that referee Daniel Movahedi wisely stepped in and waved off the fight just 20 seconds into the bout.
The opening bout of the night saw Portugal’s Milton Afonso Cabral claim a first-round finish of Ireland’s Paddy Wilkinson, who was making his professional MMA debut.
Wilkinson, an IMMAF junior world championship silver medallist back in 2018, was hoping to get his career off to a winning start but was caught clean by a lightning-fast high kick by Cabral, who claimed his fourth career victory, with all four of those wins coming via KO/TKO.
Cage Warriors 147: Unplugged – Show 1 Results
- Matthew Bonner def. Alan Carlos via knockout (punches) – Round 2, 2:02
- Matty Byfield def. Daniel Ladero via TKO (ground strikes) – Round 2, 3:00
- Mush Aslani def. Adam Darby via knockout (punch) – Round 1, 0:20
- Milton Afonso Cabral def. Paddy Wilkinson via TKO (head kick and punches) – Round 1, 0:43
