Cage Warriors returns to one of the best venues in all of MMA for their tenth Fight Night card, as the promotion heads back to Amman, Jordan and the King Hussein Youth City Boxing Arena. The location is one of the most intimate venues in the sport and is always full of rowdy Jordanians ready to enjoy some violence, and this card should oblige. The main event features a new face to the Cage Warriors ranks — but a familiar one to those who have followed the UK MMA scene — in middleweight Jack Marshman (14-4). Marshman was tapped to be one of the next big stars to come out of the UK, starting his career 10-0 before stumbling once he began facing some more experienced fighters. He has gone just 4-4 since that blistering start, but has a fresh start in Cage Warriors where he’ll look to employ his striking and surprisingly adept grappling. His opponent Abu Azaitar (8-2) is also making his Cage Warriors debut, but has earned some respect throughout the European scene for his punching power. He doesn’t throw much volume, but puts everything into his overhand right and left hands looking for the knockout. Marshman has been stopped with strikes twice, so that’s a definite possibility here. A rough weight cut could make the difference in the co-main event, as Marat Pekov (10-5) struggled to get under the 136lb limit for his bout with Scotland’s John Cullen (17-7-2), who makes his first appearance in both Cage Warriors and at bantamweight. Pekov has faced the better competition of the two, but has dropped his last two fights. Both fighters are very capable on the ground, with 17 combined submission victories, but Cullen also has eight TKOs on his resume while Pekov has never finished a fight with strikes. If it comes down to a close third round, Pekov may be too drained from making weight on Thursday to put for his best effort, and it may cost him. The crowd favorite on the night will almost certainly be Egyptian light heavyweight Mohamed Ali (9-5), who has been on Cage Warriors’ last six trips to Amman, sporting a 4-2 record in those appearances (with one of the losses being via DQ). The one-time slugger has slowly started to add wrestling and some submissions to his repetoire, but chances are he’ll head back to his roots against Frenchman Malik Merad (16-11) who holds ten victories by way of submission on his record. It will be tricky for the 5’11” Ali to get inside on the 6’7″ Merad, but once he gets there he should be able to muscle his opponent around and punish him to the raucous cheers of the crowd. Back in the middleweight division, Norman Paraisy (13-3-2, 1 NC) looks to build of his recent four-fight unbeaten streak against Allan Love (11-4). Despite his constant cardio issues, and propensity to bend the rules, Paraisy has still only lost to Brett Cooper, Maiquel Falcao and Dave Menne. He has good striking when he employs it, and solid wrestling and top control when he feels the need to go that route. All of Love’s wins have come inside the distance, but he’ll need to pull out something special to finish Paraisy, who has only been stopped once in his career. Finally, in a bout that is certain to set the tone for the evening, exciting flyweight Paul Marin (7-3) welcomes Polish prospect Marcin Lasota (7-0) to Cage Warriors. Marin is fun to watch on the feet as he throws a variety of offensive techniques, but where he truly becomes something to behold is once he gets inside. The Romanian is not shy to use one of the most extensive repertoires of throws in all of MMA. The young Pole may welcome this fight going to the ground as all of his wins are either by submission or decision, but finding a method to tap the powerful Marin may prove a bit too difficult here. The entirety of this card can be seen between Cage Warriors’ facebook page, and a stream on MMA Junkie. Today, MMA oddsmaker Nick Kalikas opened the betting lines for Cage Warriors Fight Night 10 at Several Bookmakers. Take a look: ——————– MAIN CARD (MMAJunkie.com, 2pm ET) Abu Azaitar -185 Jack Marshman +145 Marat Pekov -140 John Cullen +100 Mohamed Ali -270 Malik Merad +190 Norman Paraisy -230 Allan Love +170 Marcin Lasota -170 Paul Marin +130 ——————– Brad’s Analysis: Even though Azaitar’s offense primarily consists of overhand punches, Marshman has been caught by them before. Quite a bit, in fact. Marshman would be best served to take this to the ground, but he’s not the type of fighter to initiate a ton of grappling sequences. Because of that, I expect Azaitar to land some of those looping punches and take this fight. Pekov struggled at times with the aggressive striking of James Brum in his last bout, but his bigger issue was tiring significantly after the first round. If he does the same here (and his weight cut means he could), he’ll be in trouble again. Cullen is aggressive standing and on the ground, and has solid cardio. More often than not Pekov should be able to get him out of there in the first round with a submission, but if he doesn’t this will get very interesting. Mohamed Ali is by no means an elite light heavyweight, but when he fights in Amman he performs well above his skill level. That bodes well for him here, since he and Malik Merad are on relatively even footing from a skill perspective. Merad is the superior grappler and has massive height and length advantages, but Ali is the better striker and certainly brings more power. Merad has shown in the past he doesn’t deal particularly well with getting hit, so I can see Ali making him not want to be there after putting some early leather on him. Paraisy is the more skilled fighter here, no doubt about it. The questions are always if he will be able to go strong for three rounds if necessary and if he’ll fight to capabilities. I think Allan Love’s style will help him do that. Love doesn’t put a ton of pressure on opponents, and that should allow Paraisy to settle into his striking game, and if Love does advance then the Frenchman can always resort to his wrestling. Either way, I like the constantly disrespected Paraisy to pick up another win. Marcin Lasota is a very talented grappler, but against Paul Marin he’s going to be hard-pressed to get the fight to the ground in a favorable position. If he does, he could very well coax a submission from the Romanian, but I think the more likely scenario is that Marin keeps this on the feet and punishes Lasota, or takes it the the ground and uses his solid posture to land damaging ground and pound en route to a victory.
