After an injury forced him out of a fight at Cage Warriors 80 against Tim Wilde, followed by his opponent Adam Boussiff pulling out of Fusion Fighting Championship 23, Tom Green (11-1) is really hoping three times is a charm. The up-and-coming UK prospect will now fight on the Cage Warriors 84 card on June 2 in the O2 Arena in London, England. His opponent has not yet been announced.
Green, 29, clashed heads with a training partner during a workout in February, which resulted in him getting four stitches above his eye. The injury forced him to withdraw from his matchup with Wilde, which he said had the “potential to be a great fight,” and one he hopes to get again. A couple of weeks later, Green was set to defend his FFC featherweight title against Boussif at FFC 23 on April 1, but his opponent dropped out just last weekend and that fight fell apart, making that two cancellations in just over a month.
The featherweight phenom, a native of East Grinstead, West Sussex, last fought in September of 2016 and he badly wants to get back in the cage and resume his rising fighting career. He voiced his frustrations on his recent setbacks to MMA Plus.
“When I first heard about Adam’s withdrawal from the fight I was truly gutted,” Green said. “I have not been active for a while and I feel like a rodeo bull stuck in the pen. I realize things happen and believe that it is part of the game and that what makes you a great martial artist is the way you deal with these situations.”
With both sets of bad news out of the way, “K9” is ready to put the negativity behind him and focus on a new date at Cage Warriors 84.
“I’m not going to allow myself to be a little bitch and get down about it,” said Green, the nephew of former boxer Dave “Boy” Green, who once fought “Sugar Ray” Leonard for the WBC welterweight title. “Instead, I will use this momentum to roll into my next fight at Cage Warriors on June 2 in the O2 Arena and believe I will be a different breed of “K9.”
With 10 straight victories, all first-round finishes save for one that went into the second round, Green is ready to make some more noise on the UK scene and punch his ticket to the big show: the UFC, which he feels strongly will soon become a reality.
“It will only be a few more fights until everyone realizes, straight away, what I’m about and sees what kind of level I can bring to the game and how different what I’m bringing to this game is. As you know… Then I’ll start to look at maybe a UFC prelim card, get on that and do the same thing.”
