London's calling for Cage Warriors Lightweight champion George Hardwick as he looks to make his third title defence at Cage Warriors 169.
The Middlesbrough based athlete will face American, Lucas Clay on Saturday March 30th at the Indigo at O2, London.
The bout will mark Hardwick's first bout back in the yellow gloves since he competed on Dana White's Contender Series. Unfortunately for Hardwick, he never got going in his contest and dropped a unanimous decision loss to Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady - his first defeat since 2019.
Hardwick first signed with the Cage Warrior in 2021 and after big wins against Dean Trueman, Jakub Dohnal and Lukasz Kopera led to him earning a shot at the vacant title against Kyle O'Driscoll. It was a close contest but O'Driscoll was likely up on the score cards before he got caught with a signature Hardwick left hook to the body in the fourth and the Middlesbrough man was crowned the new Lightweight champion.
He has since defended his title twice against Chris Bungard and Yann Liasse, before receiving the call up to the Contender Series.
Standing across him in the cage at Cage Warriors 169 will be Lucas 'Cassius' Clay. The 28-year-old will be making his Cage Warriors debut and competing for the belt after an impressive run on the USA domestic scene; amassing an impressive 6-2 record over his last eight fights, with 6 of those bouts being competed on LFA.
Announcing the bout on social media, Cage Warriors President Graham Boylan said:
“On March 30th, we've got the Cage Warriors lightweight champion back in action…
“George Hardwick will defend his belt against Lucas Clay. Lucas is ten and three, has eight wins via submission (across amateur and pro) and he's never been finished."
“George has also never been finished and is coming in on a six fight Cage Warriors win-streak. This one is locked and loaded!"
Cage Warriors 169 is taking shape extremely nicely with 14 fights already announced for the show. Some of the more notable bouts include former Featherweight champion Jordan Vucenic vs Simone D'anna, an incredible Flyweight contest between top prospects Lone'er Kavanagh and Shawn Da Silva and a Light Heavyweight war can be expected when James Webb faces Yannick Bahati.
