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The arrival of Cage Warriors in San Diego back in 2021 was more significant to the UFC, MMA, and Jiu Jitsu communities than you might think at first glance.
Cage Warriors is an Irish-owned mixed martial arts promotion founded in 2009 in the United Kingdom and is currently based in London. It’s also broadcast in partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
More than that, Cage Warriors is known as a breeding ground for UFC stars. Conor McGregor, one of UFC’s most recognizable stars and a well-known fighter in other communities like boxing, was first discovered by Cage Warriors.
In 2021, Cage Warriors held its first fight in San Diego. That’s important for several reasons.
Graham Boylan, who took over as president and owner of Cage Warriors in 2010, was essentially solely responsible for making San Diego the U.S. hub of Cage Warriors. He said he wanted to bring the promotion to the city because of the raw talent he was seeing in the local fighting communities.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego has one of the largest Jiu Jitsu communities in the United States. Alliance Jiu Jitsu, one of the bigger names in the sport, is based in the city.
“I was beginning to notice a whole community of San Diego fighters that were here and had potential, but had no platform,” Boylan told the Union-Tribune. “They had no opportunities to fight.”
Boylan added that Cage Warriors didn’t need to bring MMA to San Diego — its footprint in London was already enough to sustain the business. However, he said he “wanted to expand because of the fighters [he] saw here.”
Over time, Boylan began expanding in the city. He brought in infrastructure to train fighters. Cage Warriors, for example, trains its fighters for six hours a day to prepare them for fights. That training also makes them highly competitive if they eventually move onto the UFC.
Cage Warriors held its first fight in San Diego back in August 2020 with multiple fighters on the card. That fight wasn’t the last. The promotion also held a fight in October and is planning on an additional matchup in March 2022.
According to Boylan, the goal is to create a team of fighters who can compete with others across the U.S. — and even abroad.
San Diego has a strong but largely untapped fighting community, at least when it comes to UFC. The city is already known for hosting the gyms of boxing stars like Canelo Alvarez.
However, Jiu Jitsu in San Diego has a bigger pool of talent than it might seem. Local gems like The Arena Gym allow fighters to train in various styles, including Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, and Wrestling. All of those styles are essential to the core of MMA, which is mixing all types of combat sports into a single bout.
Since Cage Warriors is an accelerator for new UFC talent, that bodes well for San Diego’s fighters.
Back in 2015, Cage Warriors became so well-known in the MMA community that the UFC agreed to add it to its broadcasting package. Since then, 105 Cage Warrior fighters have made it onto a UFC card.
Now, Cage Warriors is largely seen as a kind of "minor league" for the UFC where young talent is trained, discovered, and eventually becomes the next generation of stars.
“We look at Cage Warriors as the most proven pathway to UFC,” Boylan told the Union-Tribune. “San Diego hasn’t had (Cage Warriors) and, because of that, San Diego hasn’t been able to have any of its fighters in UFC.”
For Boylan, bringing UFC to San Diego was also about his love for the city itself. He first moved to the Southern California city in 2019 after being given an ultimatum by his wife.
“We didn’t have to bring it to San Diego,” he said. “We have cities all over the world. We did it because I live here and happened to see it.”
The next Cage Warriors card, Cage Warriors 133, is slated for Friday, March 4, at the Del Mar Arena. It will feature fighters like Helson Reis, Devin Goodale, Tyler Escoto, Max Rohskopf, and Joseph Morales.
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