Cage Warriors have a new featherweight world champion in Paul Hughes. This rematch was labelled as the biggest rematch in Cage Warriors history, and it certainly delivered.
The matchmakers knew precisely what they were doing as there was a clear English/Irish divide in the crowd as the card had good representation from both nations.
Coming out for the first round both fighters were understandably cautious but calculated, aware they had 25 minutes or less to claim their championship. Both men chose their shots carefully with as striking heavy, Vucenic taking the opening round doing slightly more effective work.
After a light exchange to open the second round, Hughes took Vucenic’s back controlling him for the majority of the round, having the Englishman fending off submission attempts and keeping the damage to a minimum.
The third round consisted of a good back-and-forth exchange with both men finding success with the round ending with Hughes dropping Vucenic with a combination leaving his mark in the last few seconds of the round.
Round 4 was dominated by Paul Hughes after a fairly even exchange for the first few minutes, the Irishman dropped Vuncenic with a left hook to the body followed by a right hook to the head which started 3 minutes of ground and pound and the threat of a rear naked choke by the interim featherweight champion, leaving Vuecnic bloodied and bruised going into the fifth and final round.
The fifth round had venom behind it as Vucenic came out with intention as it was clear he needed a stoppage. Creating entertaining exchanges before Hughes dropped Vucenic with the same combination as he did in the previous round. Which was followed by Hughes capping off the whole performance with a dominant ground & pound control, leaving no doubt about the outcome.
And New! Paul Hughes won the Cage Warriors Featherweight via unanimous decision ( 49-46, 50-43, 49-43)
Standout performances included Mehdi Ben Lakhdhar in his comeback performance against Xavier Sedras, Caolan Loughran’s TKO victory over Luke Shanks & Harry Hardwick comfortably beating the experienced Steve Aimable via unanimous decision
Cage Warriors 145 was another class event by Europe’s leading MMA promotion which continues to put on consistently brilliant events. This is followed up by Cage Warriors 146 in Manchester headlined by Christain Duncan defending his Middleweight Championship against Marian Dimitrov, with Jimmy Wallhead facing Mateusz Figlak for the interim welterweight championship.
Visit https://cagewarriors.com/ for more information
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