The USA TODAY Sports Media Group announced today that its MMA destination, MMAjunkie.com, will be the exclusive online home for live coverage of Cage Warriors Fighting Championship events in 2012.
Cage Warriors, the top MMA circuit in the U.K. and Europe, has sent many top prospects on to compete within organizations including the UFC, Strikeforce and Bellator. Additionally, many other notables – including Brian Foster, Matt Veach and Pascal Krauss – have competed within the fighter-friendly promotion.
MMAjunkie.com will provide free live streams of all 16 Cage Warriors shows in the coming year, including three during the month of February.
Cage Warriors has already scheduled 16 events in 13 countries for 2012, including events in England, Lebanon, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Poland, Turkey and Russia.
Additionally, a prospects-rich eight-man middleweight tournament will determine a new titleholder while notables such as Rosi Sexton and Aisling Daly are part of a four-slot women's championship tournament.
"We're excited to bring more great fights to our MMAjunkie.com community," said MMAjunkie.com editor-in-chief and co-founder Dann Stupp. "Our past Cage Warriors streams have been a big hit with Junkie Nation, and we look forward to streaming even more."
As part of the agreement, MMAjunkie.com will stream all live main cards from Cage Warriors' 2012 schedule. Preliminary-card bouts will stream live on Cage Warriors' Facebook page.
"To have one of the biggest MMA websites in the world partner with Cage Warriors is a big deal to our team," said Cage Warriors director Graham Boylan. "It shows that Cage Warriors is a promotion that ranks with the best when MMAjunkie.com decides to be our exclusive partner.
"Cage Warriors will showcase the fighters to the rest of the world and open the eyes of the bigger organizations to the talent that's out there, as we are one of the top feeder shows and will continue to grow talent for the big guns. We are very proud to say our media partner is MMAjunkie.com and the USA TODAY Sports Media Group."
In addition to MMAjunkie.com's online stream, Cage Warriors broadcasts its events on Sky Sports (U.K.), Fight Now TV (U.S.) and The Fight Network (Canada), among other TV outlets.
The 2012 Cage Warriors schedule includes:
Saturday, Feb. 11 – Beirut, Lebanon (CWFC Fight Night 3)
Saturday, Feb. 18 – London, United Kingdom (CWFC 45)
Thursday, Feb. 23 – Ukraine (CWFC 46)
Friday, March 16 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Thursday, April 12 – Saudi Arabia
Thursday, May 3 – Qatar
Saturday, May TBA – Dublin, Ireland
Saturday, June 16 - Turkey
Saturday, July 7 – Poland
Saturday, July 21 – London, United Kingdom
Saturday, July 28 – Ukraine
Thursday, Aug. 30 – Amman, Jordan
Saturday, September (TBA) – Russia (TBA)
Friday, Oct. 19 – Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Saturday, Nov. 17 – Hungary
Friday, Nov. 30 – Kuwait
Friday, Dec. 14 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Source: MMAjunkie.com, Cage Warriors announce exclusive live-event partnership for 2012