Cage Warriors have announced the athletes set to compete in their Bantamweight Prize Fighter tournament.
The four-man tournament will go down at Cage Warriors 174 on July 20th at the Indigo At The O2, on a card already stacked with talent, including James Webb taking on Yannick Bahati in a Light Heavyweight contest, Thomas Paull and Jordy Bakkes squaring off at Featherweight and Nik Bagley facing Ryan Shelley at 145lbs.
The one night tournament will see the Bantamweights compete in one, 2 round semi-final bout, with the winners of both then facing eachother later on in the night and the victor taking home $50,000 in prize money.
Michele Martignoni was the first man announced for the Prize Fighter tournament. The former Cage Warriors Bantamweight Champion has been a regular feature on the Cage Warriors scene since signing with the promotion in 2021. After a win against Scott Malone at Cage Warriors 140, ‘The Italian Thunder’ faced then champion Dominic Wooding for the Bantamweight title. With the perfect game plan in place, Martignoni grinded out a well fought unanimous decision win to be crowned the new king at 135lbs, he then vacated the title that next year to keep the division moving as he pursued a second title at 125lbs. Martignoni already has a victory against one of the other athletes in the tournament, having beat Weslley Maia when the Italian made his promotional debut.
Shirzad Qadrian has shown both his grappling and striking attributes, since signing with Cage Warriors. After the Maia loss, he returned to the cage just four months later and earned a third round rear naked choke win against the dangerous Rory Evans. He then had another relatively quick turnaround, making the walk in March of this year and stopping Emanuele Zaccaria with first round ground and pound.
As Fighters Only announced earlier this week, Alexander Loof will enter the tournament looking to show how dangerous he can be at 135lbs. In his only previous appearance in the yellow gloves, Loof claimed the 2023 Cage Warriors Fight Of The Year following his Featherweight war against Luke Riley. Since the bout, which marked Loof’s first loss as a professional, the Swedishman has dropped down to Bantamweight and got himself back to winning ways at FCR 20.
Alessandro Giordano enters the tournament looking to continue to build momentum following the biggest win of his career last time out against Sam Kelly at Cage Warriors 168. The victory was the 26-year-old’s first win under the Cage Warriors banner having picked up unanimous decision losses to both Enrico Di Gangi and Nathan Fletcher.
Aidan Stephen has made no secret of the fact he is looking to stay busy this year and the potential of two fights in one night will be very appealing to the Scotsman. After three years away from competition ‘The Phenomenal’ returned in front of a home crowd at Cage Warriors 171 and claimed a unanimous decision against Gianluca Scottoli. Stephen has made no secret of the fact he has his eyes on claiming the Bantamweight title and the winner of the Prize Fighter tournament will no doubt take a huge step forward in being the next man to challenge current champion Liam Gittins.
Weslley Maia was the final athlete announced for the four man, one night tournament. The Brazilian has been in fine form of late and is currently on a three fight winning streak. After losses to Michele Martignoni and Rory Evans in 2021, Maia took a year away from competition but returned in 2023 and came back with a bang. After submitting Bogdan Barbu at Cage Warriors 150, ‘Magic’ then handed fellow tournament entry Shirzad Qadrian his first professional loss, with Maia picking up a unanimous decision. Then, to see the year out, Maia made his PFL promotional debut against rising star, Lewis McGrillen. The Great Britain Top Team man called upon all of his experience to prevent McGrillen to establish a foothold in the contest and ultimately handed the prospect his first professional defeat.
The promotion have confirmed to Fighters Only that all six names will be entered into a draw, with the first four being names to be drawn set to compete in the four man tournament and the remaining two athletes will square off in what will serve as an alternate bout. The victor of the alternate bout will only step in to the main tournament if one of the other athletes cannot compete in the final.
