Andy Clamp will meet Matthew Byfield at for the vacant Cage Warriors Light Heavyweight title as Cage Warriors 168 sees another title fight added to the ever-impressive card.
The two were originally scheduled to fight for the gold late last year at Cage Warriors 164 in Newcastle but Byfield was forced to withdraw from the contest due to an injury.
It has been an arduous journey to Cage Warriors for Clamp. Having first competed as a professional back in 2014, ‘The Vice’ found himself on the domestic circuit for eight years before eventually joining the Cage Warriors ranks in November 2022. Clamp will return to the BEC Arena in Manchester for the first time since his promotional debut, looking to right the wrongs of his last performance there. The debut went far from ideal when he was dropped with a huge right hand from Chuck Campbell and before he could recover entirely, the American dropped him once more and swarmed him with heavy strikes to see an end to the contest.
Clamp then took a fight against an unbeaten prospect, in Ghassan Abdenabi, but ‘The Vice’ demonstrated his heavy ground game and got himself back to winning ways with a first round submission at Cage Warriors 156.
Byfield has remained undefeated since pulling on the famous yellow gloves. After a no contest against Hugo Guillon in his promotion debut ‘Farda’ started to make a name for himself at 205lbs. At Cage Warriors 142, his dispatched of Szymon Szynkiewicz with brutal elbows in the first round and then rounded out his first year with the promotion by stopping the previously unbeaten Daniel Ladero with ground and pound in the second round of their contest.
His only outing of 2023 was at Cage Warriors 151 where he faced his most experienced opponent to date, 18 fight veteran Prince McLean. Once again, Byfield proved to be too much for the man standing across the cage from him and picked up the second submission victory of his career.
Although vastly less experienced than Clamp, the calibre of athlete Byfield finds himself surrounded with at Team Renegade, such as former Cage Warriors champion Jai Herbert, top Bellator contender Fabian Edwards and the current UFC Welterweight Champion Leon Edwards, should stand him in good stead for the biggest night of career, so far.
The announcement of the Light Heavyweight title fight comes just days after it was confirmed Liam ‘The Nightmare’ Gittins will look to make the first defence of his Bantamweight World Title on the same card, against Roberto Hernandez.
