Fighters Only : Cage Warriors 157: One champion and three former champs line up in London

Simon Head

Jul 19, 2023

It’s a big fight week in London, England, with the UFC coming to The O2 Arena on Saturday night, and Cage Warriors hosting their now-traditional weekend opener at the Indigo at The O2 on Friday night.

Cage Warriors 157 will feature a middleweight championship main event, as newly-crowned champion Mick Stanton will take on former foe, and former 185-pound champ, James Webb.

The pair met back in March 2020 at Cage Warriors 112, where Webb claimed a unanimous decision victory at the BEC Arena in Manchester. But, since that fight, Stanton has gone on to capture the middleweight title, with a unanimous decision victory over Will Currie at Cage Warriors 151 seeing Stanton become a Cage Warriors champion at the age of 36.

Now “The Huyton Hammer” will look to claim a triple victory on Friday night in London as he bids to claim the win, while registering his first title defense and exacting a measure of revenge on the man who defeated him back in 2020.

For Webb, meanwhile, the bout offers the chance to reclaim the middleweight throne after losing his title to Nathias Frederick at Cage Warriors 111 in November 2019.

After that title loss, Webb bounced back with victory over Stanton and Craig White, but suffered back-to-back stoppage defeats to Matt Bonner and Leon Aliu.

Webb bounced back with a decision victory over Paddy McCorry and, after his scheduled bout with Alan Carlos at Cage Warriors 150 was ruled out due to his opponent’s injury, Webb was booked in a rematch with Stanton, where he’ll look to make it 2-0 over the Merseyside man and reclaim his title in the process.

Cage Warriors officials confirmed the full fight card for London, with a 15-fight lineup that features eight featherweight matchups.

Topping the list is former 145-pound champion Jordan Vucenic, who will look to make it two wins on the spin after losing his title to Paul Hughes last November.

Corby’s Vucenic always brings a raucous contingent of fans when he fights at the Indigo, and he’ll be roared on by his fans once again as he makes his sixth consecutive appearance in the English capital, and his fourth in a row at the Indigo. His opponent Brice Picaud, arrives in London riding a four-fight win streak, with the Frenchman looking to claim a big scalp on his Cage Warriors debut.

Another Frenchman set to appear on the card is former featherweight champion Morgan Charriere, who takes on Diego Silva.

Charriere captured the featherweight title back in December 2012 with a body-shot finish of Perry Goodwin at Cage Warriors 119, but was edged out via split decision by Vucenic as he lost his belt in his first title defense at Cage Warriors 122 just three months later.

Charriere’s bid to recapture championship gold was again thwarted on the scorecards as he was narrowly beaten again, this time via majority decision, by Ireland’s Paul Hughes, for the interim title at Cage Warriors 128. But, since then, “The Last Pirate” has bounced back. A split-decision win over Daniel Bazant steadied the ship, and a first-round doctor stoppage win over Pedro Souza underlined his title credentials once again.

Now he faces Brazil’s Diego Silva looking to produce the outstanding featherweight performance of the night as he looks to punch his ticket to another title fight later this year.

Silva, meanwhile, arrives for his Cage Warriors debut looking for a fresh start. The Brazilian lost out to Muin Gafurov as he challenged for the LFA bantamweight title in his last outing back in October 2022. Now set to compete at featherweight for the first time since 2017, the 23-fight veteran will look to score an attention-grabbing victory on his first appearance in the famous yellow gloves.

Also set for action on the main card is a matchup between “The Latvian Express” Madars Fleminas and Poland’s Daniel Skibinski that looks sure to produce an all-action welterweight battle, while rising star Luke Riley will kick off the main card against Matheus Malta at 145 pounds.

One eagerly-anticipated matchup we unfortunately won’t be seeing is the planned flyweight bout between Lone’er Kavanagh and Shawn Da Silva, with injury forcing the latter out of action.