George Hardwick and Danilo Belluardo set to fight for vacant lightweight title at CW 134

George Hardwick and Danilo Belluardo will face off at CW 134 to crown a new Cage Warriors lightweight champion on 18th March at the Indigo at the O2, the night before UFC London.

Hardwick was originally set for a title fight at last year’s CW 131 show in London, but the fight was pulled hours before being scheduled to go ahead due to Mehdi Ben Lakhdhar testing positive for Covid-19.

Belluardo meanwhile jumps straight into the fire at Cage Warriors and could see a title win in Europe’s leading MMA promotion be his ticket back to the UFC.

On the title fight’s addition to an already stacked CW 134 card, Cage Warriors president, Graham Boylan, said: “We are kicking off the biggest weekend in UK MMA in style.

“Hardwick vs Belluardo is going to be a great fight for the fans in attendance and for those watching from home. George has finished his last two fights and now has a UFC veteran to test him, while Danilo has shown in the past how dangerous he can be with seven KO wins.

“We’ve also got the biggest rematch in Cage Warriors history on this card too with Jordan Vucenic taking on Paul Hughes, so I’m expecting this to be one of, if not, the best, card Cage Warriors has ever put on!”

Hardwick last competed at CW 129 where he secured a submission win over Jakub Dohnal, this came after his Cage Warriors return at CW 124 where he TKO’d former Cage Warriors featherweight champion, Dean Trueman, with a body shot.

When asked about finally getting his chance to fight for the Cage Warriors lightweight title, Hardwick said:

“I am buzzing to finally have an opponent set. I respect Danilo but he’s going to have to face a version of me that is coming off two solid fight camps. I am more than ready to take the title and pick up my first win against a UFC veteran.”

 George Hardwick, Jakub Dohnal

Belluardo is a two-fight UFC veteran with 10 wins within the distance and was originally scheduled to make his Cage Warriors debut at last year’s Double Trouble event before issues with Covid-19 forced his bout to be cancelled at short notice.

The Italian has also fought some names familiar to Cage Warriors fans, including former CW welterweight champion Stefano Paterno and another welterweight stand out in Mark O. Madsen.

Tickets for CW 134 are available here.

Main Card

Jordan Vucenic (c) vs Paul Hughes (ic) – Featherweight title bout

George Hardwick vs Danilo Belluardo – vacant lightweight title bout

Tobias Harila vs Jeremy Petley – featherweight bout

Will Currie vs Patrick Vallee – middleweight bout

Prelims

Decky McAleenan vs Dan Collins – lightweight bout

Aidan James vs Kingsley Crawford – bantamweight bout

Steve Aimable vs James Hendin – featherweight bout

Ben Ellis vs Nik Bagley – featherweight bout

Adam Amarasinghe vs Rory Evans – bantamweight bout

Jamie Richardson vs Madars Fleminas – welterweight bout