Lightweight champion [autotag]Joe McColgan[/autotag] has vacated his Cage Warriors title, setting up a new championship bout next month.
McColgan (8-3-1) vacated the belt “due to personal matters affecting his ability to train,” according to an announcement from Cage Warriors. So a vacant lightweight title bout between [autotag]George Hardwick[/autotag] (8-1) and [autotag]Mehdi Ben Lakhdhar[/autotag] (5-0-1) will take place at Cage Warriors 131.
The promotion announced the new title fight Tuesday for the event, which is set for Dec. 10 at York Hall in London. The card is the first of back-to-back Cage Warriors events for its end-of-year “Double Trouble” doubleheader. The events will stream on UFC Fight Pass.
“Life has Joe McColgan busy and he’s just about got enough time to get into the gym to help his training partners get ready for their fights,” Cage Warriors president Graham Boylan said in a release from the promotion. “Joe doesn’t want to hold the division up and has decided to vacate the belt providing he can fight the new champ on his return, which he expects to be around April or May next year. I have the utmost respect for the champ for allowing the division to move on in his absence.
“Contender wise, we have two excellent fighters. George Hardwick is on a four-fight win streak with his last two fights ending within the distance. Mehdi Ben Lakhdhar is undefeated in Cage Warriors, winning three fights and drawing a fourth. That draw just happened to be a ‘Fight of the Year’ with Joe McColgan back in 2019.”
Hardwick has four straight wins on the heels of the lone loss of his career, which came by decision at Cage Warriors 109 to Madars Fleminas. Since then, he has a pair of Bellator wins over Richard Kiely and Nicolo Solli in 2020 and a pair of second-round finishes for Cage Warriors this year. He stopped Dean Trueman with a TKO at Cage Warriors 124 in June, then submitted Jakub Dohnal at Cage Warriors 129 in October.
Lakhdhar is 3-0-1 under the Cage Warriors banner. He’ll fight Hardwick a year to the date since his most recent fight, which was a first-round knockout of Stevie McIntosh at Cage Warriors 117. After a perfect 4-0 start to his career, including a pair of 2018 Cage Warriors wins, he fought to a majority draw with McColgan in September 2019.
McColgan won the lightweight title in June with a third-roundn guillotine choke finish of champion Agy Sardari after more than four years of up, down and up again results for Cage Warriors.