Phillips defeats Fields at CWFC 48, earns shot for vacant title.

With his victory over Chris Fields at Cage Warriors Fighting Championships 48 July 21st John Phillips earned a rematch against Pavel Kusch for the vacant middleweight title September 1st.  CWFC 48 took place at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town, England with a live webcast on MMA Junkie. 

Phillips was in trouble in the first round as Fields worked strikes from mount, a front kick to Phillip’s face upon the fighters standing, and a second takedown to close out the round.  The second round started out the same with Fields scoring a quick takedown but this time Phillips found a guillotine choke for the win.

16-5-1 Phillips lost the first fight to Kusch, a 0:25 heel hook last April, but has since picked up two wins, this one and Tomas Penz last May.  13-2 Kusch meanwhile hasn’t fought since the first Phillips fight. Kusch was originally supposed to face Victor Cheng for the title, this change being the announced Friday before the fights. 

Also on CWFC 48 TUF 12 vet Aaron Wilkinson quickly defeated Leigh Cohoon with a rear-naked choke just over two minutes while Dale Hardiman came back from a bad first round to KO Ido Pariente. 

Overall it was a good card and one can’t really complain about a free webcast if it wasn’t, the problem is with this show being an international one there were technical glitches for fans in North America that made the show difficult to watch.  One has to give both MMA Junkie and CWFC credit for what they are pulling off but compared to other webcasts like those on Sherdog or GoFightLive it is difficult to watch at times due to “hiccups”.  Hopefully these might be ironed out by the September 1st show, also expected to be webcast on MMA Junkie. 

CWFC 48 results:

Charlie Watts def. Victor Peixoto 0:53 R1 by guillotine choke
Leon Del Gaudio def. Mehmet Faulds 3:03 R1 b y rear-naked choke
Piotr Ptasinski def. Jacek Toczydlowski by unanimous decision
Dayman Lake def. Jay Mortimore 1:56 R1 by TKO
Kris Edwards def. Brian Hyslop 1:44 R2 by armbar
Dale Hardiman def. Ido Pariente 0:44 R2 by KO
Danny Roberts def. Jack Mason 2:46 R2 by armbar
Denniston Sutherland def. Brett Sizeland 4:132 R1 by TKO
Aaron Wilkinson def. Leigh Cohoon 2:06 R1 by rear-naked choke
John Phillips def. Chris Fields 2:04 R2 by guillotine choke