By Brad Wharton @MMABrad48
Last week, one of the hottest topics of debate among the Cage Warriors in Manchester crew centred on two simple questions: Who would be walking out of CW 207 with the world lightweight title over their shoulder, and how would they get it done?
“Brown’s wrestling will be too much”
“Ieuan’s grappling is going to cause problems”
“Which version of the champ will turn up?”
“Has the challenger been too inactive?”
“Omiel will stop him early”
“Davies will drown him in deep water”
Eventually, after having the same conversation twenty times and pulling more U-Turns than the outgoing British Prime Minister, we were all forced to admit that it was one of those fights where anything could happen.
Still, nobody expected that.
Saturday’s main event was a welcome reminder, if we needed one, that the reason we love this often ridiculous sport so much is that for every bit of silliness it sends our way, it also throws up something exquisite.
The dust has barely settled since Liam Davies blew up the lightweight division last weekend, yet we’re just days away from another world title fight with similar capacity for shock and awe.
Business at the Front, Party at the Back
There’s a lot to be said for a man bold enough to rock a mullet in the Year of our Lord 2026. I couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it. To successfully pull off such a do in this day and age requires a certain aura. Rizz, as I believe the children call it.
Nik Bagley has that rizz, both inside the cage and out of it. He’s the talk of the town in the featherweight division, having just dethroned the seemingly insurmountable Solomon Simon deep in enemy territory at CW 200.
If you asked me to pick a work out of the dictionary to describe the champ’s methodology, it’d be ‘Enforcer’. He doesn’t just trouble you with his style of fighting, he compels it. You will have to defend a takedown. You will have to protect ya neck.
And lets not forget, he’s coming into this one as the A-side.
Be it his interesting interviews about wet dreams or his punishing performances in the cage, Bagley has endeared himself to CW fans. From marauding his way through the 145lbs division to comprehensively outpointing elite-tier opposition in Keweny Lopes and Sol, the 29 year old Ukrainian import has made himself undeniable as one of Europe’s top prospects.
A physical specimen (just ask Joe Exotic) with the kind of relentless wrestling output capable of draining opponents both physically and mentally, the leading featherweights outside of the UFC aren’t exactly queuing up to tousle with the GB Top Team man.
Well…all except one.
The Youngest Old Head
I once heard that Aiden Lee didn’t like being referred to as a veteran when he fought less experienced opponents.
I get it. It’s a term often used to describe an old dog or a big name when they’re sent out to make the Next Big Thing look like a million bucks.
But here’s the thing; Lee isn’t being sent out to make Bagley look like a million bucks. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Many, many years ago – so long, in fact, that I can’t remember when or where – I was sat in a hotel lobby one Saturday afternoon trying to force a particularly brutal hangover out of my system with an abundance of Coca-Cola and Alka-Seltzer. As I’m sure you can imagine, conversation wasn’t top of my list of priorities, but a bunch of people seemed insistent on talking to me about how some young, quiet kid sat in the corner with his hood up was really, really good at fighting.
Turns out that kid was Aiden Lee, and they were right. If anything they underestimated his potential; turns out he’s actually pretty fucking great at fighting.
We call Lee a veteran because from Day One, he’s thrown down with nothing but the best available opposition, at the highest possible level. No easy fights, no gimmie opponents. Entering his prime years he has more high-level experience under his belt than the vast majority of prizefighters retire with.
Remember how he dealt with Giuseppe Mastrogiacomo? The next big thing, strangled within a round? This isn’t a man who cares for hype, momentum, or bookmaker’s odds.
Crucially – as far as this fight goes – he’s an entirely different proposition than the one Bagley had to deal with in February. Where Solomon displayed a fight style akin the patience and methodical reasoning of his biblical namesake, Lee will attack, attack, attack for 25 grueling minutes.
And on Saturday night, the minutes will be particularly grueling. It’s going to be warm in the shade at London’s indigo, as the UK experiences temperatures that make its citizens wonder why they ever wasted all that money on a Jet2 holiday to Benidorm in the first place.
Jokes aside for a second, there are serious questions to be asked. Will Bagley be able to do Bagley things for 25 minutes in such oppressive conditions? Will Aiden Lee be able to capitalise on an exhausted wrestler late in the day, or will the weight of heaving the champ off him over five rounds at 30+ degrees hamper even one of the greatest gas tanks on the roster?
If you’re a fan of Bagley or Lee with skin in the game, it’s just one factor amidst a myriad of others you should be thinking about as that funny feeling builds in the pit of your stomach ahead of the Big Fight.
Or if, like the rest of us, you’re just impartially along for what promises to be one of the wildest rides of the Summer Series, then it’s up to you right? You could spend the next couple of days pondering whether Bagley’s wrestling will be enough to nullify Aiden’s striking, or whether Lee’s experience will write off Nik’s physical prowess. Whether it’ll be ‘AND STILL’ or ‘AND NEW’.
Or you could sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that a Cage Warriors main event of such magnitude never misses, and never will.