Night to remember for Tillery Combat at Cage Warriors show

Streamed across the world on UFC Fight Pass and live on BT Sport, Cage Warriors is seen as a perfect platform for elite European fighters to showcase their skills.

And the event saw several Welsh fighters show that they could well follow in the footsteps of Conor McGregor and Michael Bisping, who started out with Cage Warriors before making it big in the UFC.

Kicking off the main card was Tillery Combat’s unbeaten prospect Jack ‘The Tank’ Shore against France’s Konmon Deh, who was on a six-fight winning streak.

Featherweight Shore, from Abertillery, looked to set the pace early on as he took the Frenchman down with ease (pictured above) and controlled his far more experienced opponent.

Any attempts by Deh to stand up were thwarted by a composed Shore, who broke his rivals’ will with short and nasty elbows.

Deh manoeuvred out of an arm-triangle choke but Shore, hungry for the finish, transitioned to an arm bar and sealed a submission win with seconds of the first round left.

Shore’s performance at Cage Warriors 83 delighted his jubilant army of supporters, as well as his dad and coach Richard.

Richard Shore has created a well-oiled machine at Tillery Combat, which inc-ludes Jack Marshman, the first Welshman to be signed by the UFC.

Next up for the Blaina gym was another unbeaten fighter in the shape of bantamweight Josh ‘Crazy Horse’ Reed, who faced Gavin Kelly.

After eating a heavy front kick in the opening exchanges, Reed (pictured below, left) softened Kelly up with some solid leg kicks before a left-hand wobbled his opponent.

Sensing an early stoppage, Reed pounced with a flurry of unanswered heavy shots and reduced Kelly to a punch bag, before the Irishman crumbled to the canvas and suffered a first-round knockout.

The main event was billed as an intriguing matchup between Pontypridd’s versatile Lewis ‘The Foot’ Long versus knockout artist and UFC veteran Che Mills.

Long scooped up Mills with a double leg takedown early on and sent him plummeting to the canvas, only for Mills to be injured and tap out immediately.

After such an entertaining night it was not what the fans wanted and certainly not how the fighters would have wanted it to end.

But Long now boasts a four-fight win streak and, like his compatriots before him, is turning heads across the world of MMA.

And on a fantastic night for Tillery Combat, there were also wins for the gym’s Kris Edwards (above, right), Mason Jones (below, right) and Jordan Peake.

All pictures courtesy of Huw Fairclough