Graham Boylan: Matchmaking paused due to title ramifications at Cage Warriors 100

Graham Boylan revealed that Cage Warriors matchmaking has been paused until after the promotion’s milestone event, Cage Warriors 100, this Saturday in Cardiff, Wales due to the title ramifications that exist throughout the card.

According to Boylan, it was felt that all of the promotion’s “big guns” should be brought out for the centenary event given the landmark marquee.

“This card had to be the biggest one we’ve done to date,” Boylan told Eurobash.

“It’s a centenary show, there have been a lot of years put into this organization, there are a lot of faces still involved since I took over 2010 and we just felt like bringing out every big gun from the roster was the way to do it. It’s a really impressive card for European MMA.”

Boylan claims that all the fights across the main and preliminary cards could have title ramifications and because of that, he has halted the matchmaking process so that bouts can be booked on the back of what happens at the Ice Arena.

“This is the first time in the history of the organization that all matchmaking has stopped until after this event. This has never happened before. Think about 2019 for example, we have three shows in 20 days. There are fights getting matched but they are pro debut guys; guys who have had one or two fights, guys who are not going to have title relevance in any way, shape or form. Every fight on this card has stopped any bit of matchmaking we’ve wanted to do for January.”

Unsurprisingly, celebrated Cage Warriors matchmaker, Ian Dean, hasn’t taken the news too well.

“He’s messaging me every f*cking day asking me what can he do or what can he start on. I’m telling him, ‘Dude, last month you told me there were too many fights to match and you needed a break, now you’re calling me asking me what can you do!’

“He’s going demented, he doesn’t know what to do with himself because he can’t match fights. The problem is, with this pro card at Cage Warriors 100 on Saturday night, every fight has a knock on effect for the matching, which is going to happen at the start of the year. Every fight, not just one, has some kind of knock on effect as to what will happen in January and February,” said Boylan.

The Cage Warriors president plans to sit down with Dean in the days following Saturday’s show to build the recently announced dates for Liverpool, Copenhagen and London.

“We need to get Cage Warriors 100 out of the way, see who wins and see who loses. We need to see who is available for these for three shows of the year.

“Come Monday the 10^th[of December], Ian and I will sit down and we’ll start mapping out who’s fighting who for the first three titles of the year,” he added.