Luke Shanks dominates Samir Faiddine en route to winning Cage Warriors flywight championship
The long-awaited return of Cage Warriors saw a new flyweight king crowned.
Challenger Luke Shanks dominated the majority of his fight with champion Samir Faiddine en route to a unanimous decision victory after five hard rounds.
Things got off to a positive start for the Frenchman as he seemed to have a slight striking edge over England’s Shanks.
However, Shanks switched up the gameplan in the second round, found success in his new approach and kept going back to that well for the remaining three rounds.
Shanks appeared to have a distinct grappling advantage over his opponent and was more than happy to either lay wait in guard or move into a more dominant position to land some troubling ground and pound.
Faiddine’s defensive wrestling wasn’t up to scratch as Shanks had his way with him for the rest of the fight.
Shanks boldly shouted “I’m the champ” during the fifth round as he romped home to Cage Warriors championship glory. He didn’t get the finish, but it was a dominant performance for the Scotland-based Northampton native.
CW 114, as well as the other two upcoming Cage Warriors: The Trilogy events, was sponsored by Envisage MMA. Head here to check out their range of products, including their pre-workout coffee.
Jake Hadley ends Shaj Haque inside a round
On a night where a new Cage Warriors flyweight champion emerged, Jake Hadley put the promotion’s 125-pound division on notice with an impressive victory over Shaj Haque.
In his Cage Warriors debut, Midlands mauler Hadley boosted his record 6-0 against the more experienced Haque, but it wasn’t a gift given to him.
Haque started the fight well and managed to keep Hadley at bay with some wily cage craft, slipping away from attacks and throwing his own strikes – mostly leg kicks – at range.
However, Hadley displayed his own impressive fight IQ but solving the Haque puzzle and quickly.
Towards the end of the first round, Hadley started firing off some brutal kicks to the body and head. Haque was wobbled by one of those kicks and “White Kong” smelled blood.
Hadley launched an assault of punches before dragging Haque down to the mat to pour on some further punishment. Said punishment came via some brutally accurate ground and pound shots which rendered Haque unconscious – the first stoppage loss of his eight-year career.
Fantastic victory from Hadley and the former EFC flyweight champion looks more than at home in one of Europe’s biggest MMA promotions.
Cage Warriors 114 full results
Cage Warriors Flyweight championship: Luke Shanks def. Samir Faiddine by unanimous decision after five rounds
Flyweight: Jake Hadley def. Shaj Haque by KO (punches) at 4:43 of round one
Welterweight: Mateusz Figlak def. Madars Fleminas by submission (rear-naked choke) at 1:20 of round one
Welterweight: Aaron Khalid def. Mick Stanton by technical submission (anaconda choke) at 0:28 of round one
Flyweight: Adam Amarasinghe def. Coner Hignett by unanimous decision after three rounds
Lightweight: John Mitchell def. Alan Brykalski by submission (rear-naked choke) at 1:52 of round one
Middleweight: Matt Bonner def. George Smith by TKO (punches) at 1:33 of round three
Bantamweight: Jack Maguire def. Ciaran Mulholland by unanimous decision after three rounds
Lightweight: Michal Figlak def. Oban Elliott by TKO (punches) at 2:47 of round three