Cage Warriors 94 Preview:

Cage Warriors 94 Preview:

By Jon Prentice

Cage Warriors 94 goes down this weekend, June 16th 2018, from the Lotto Arena in Antwerp, with a bantamweight title fight between Brian Bouland (7-1) and Ilia Topuria (5-0) headlining the show. In addition the card features several exciting prospects which should make for an entertaining night of action.

Belgium’s own Bouland heads into the bout for the vacant title following back to back victories over Darren O’Gorman and Josh Reed, both via TKO. His sole loss came at the hands of Marko Kovacevic in October 2016 for the HIT Fighting Championship flyweight title. His opponent, Spaniard Topuria has a perfect professional record leading into the bout with 5 wins all coming via submission. He will be making his debut under the Cage Warriors banner as he enters enemy territory on Saturday night.

The co main event is a lightweight showdown between exciting UK prospect Jai Herbert (5-1) and the Netherlands’ Erdi Karatas (9-4). Herbert will also be making his Cage Warriors debut having made his last 4 appearances under the BAMMA banner going 3-1 in the process. His sole loss came at the hands of upcoming BAMMA lightweight title challenger Rhys McKee back in 2016. The Team Renegade man won his last fight via 2nd round TKO over Rick Selvarajah at BAMMA 29. Karatas will also be making his debut for the promotion and enters the fight following a 4 fight win streak with 3 of the 4 fights ending by the way of KO/TKO. All 4 of the bouts have taken place on Belgium’s regional MMA scene.

Another local man will also be hoping to get his hand raised on Saturday night as experienced lightweight Donovan Desmae (11-4) takes on Netherlands’ Hubert Geven (11-3). Desmae enters off the back of an impressive two victories over hot prospect Aiden Lee at Cage Warriors 89 via decision and Richard Williams ar Cage Warriors 91 via 1st round TKO. Geven is undefeated since 2015 having won his last 3 fights with 1 win apiece via decision, submission and KO/TKO. He most recently fought at Clan Wars 30 defeating Polands Maciek Gierszewski via submission in the dying stages of the 1st round.

The rest of the main card is made up of a featherweight bout between Sameer Alekozai (7-1) and Krzysztof Klaczek (10-5), and a welterweight match up between Jan Quaeyhaegens (6-3) and Phil Mulpeter (8-5).

The prelims feature a hot prospect in the strawweight division as Cory McKenna (1-0) makes only her 2nd professional appearance against France’s Eva Dourthe (3-0). McKenna made her professional debut at Cage Warriors 91 and put on a very impressive display as she defeated Maria Vittoria Colonna via TKO as her opponent retired at the end of the 1st round. Dourthe is the more experienced of the two having made a perfect start to her professional career winning all 3 bouts, with 2 decisions and a submission to her name. She will be set to make her Cage Warriors debut.

The full card for Cage Warriors 94 is as follows:

Main card –

Vacant bantamweight title
Brian Bouland vs Ilia Topuria

Erdi Karatas vs Jai Herbert

Donovan Desmae vs Hubert Geven

Sameer Alekozai vs Krzysztof Klaczek

Jan Quaeyhaegens vs Phil Mulpeter

Pro prelims –

Maarten Wouters vs Angelo Rubino

Cory McKenna vs Eva Dourthe

Leah McCourt vs Manon Fiorot

Tonny Van Dijk vs Tomek Langowski

Salvatore Liga vs Hasan Gulmez

Amateur card –

Anthony Lambrechts vs Magomed Gudanton

James Vandergheyst vs Jorn Sjaardema

Tarik Jaaidi vs Melroy Ramautar

Clint Koolen vs Giovanni Dubois