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Cage Warriors 46 Preview.

Cage Warriors 46 Preview

February-22-12
The busy Cage Warriors schedule continues, and this week they're in the Ukraine with Cage Warriors 46.

Author: Jay Furness

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Kiev, Ukraine plays host to Cage Warriors 46 tomorrow night, and the promotion's third event in consecutive weeks.

With Cage Warriors Fight Night 3 and Cage Warriors 45 already in the bag in 2012, they move on to the last of their March events and produce another fine card.

CWFC 46 has a lot to live up to, with great fights aplenty in Beirut and London, but with some of the well-matched tussles on the bill here there is no doubt it will deliver.

Topping the bill is the heavyweight clash between Andreas Kraniotakes (12-5) vs. Dmitry Poberezhets (10-4).

"Big Daddy" Kraniotakes is a finisher, that's for sure. The German powerhouse has eight TKO victories, and four submissions (with two of those coming to strikes). He showed his versatility when he submitted ranked Englishman Dave Keeley in his last Cage Warriors appearance, and he's comfortable in all ranges, particularly in top position raining down strikes.

He went the distance with former UFC champion Tim Sylvia last time out at ProElite 2: Big Guns, showing that his progression isn't too far from the top tier.

Kraniotakes is a tough test for Poberezhets, but the local Ukrainian heavyweight has fought the likes of top Europeans Guram Gugenishvili and Magomed Malikov, so he is no stranger to hard matchups.

He has a mixed bag of victories, with submissions, knockouts and decisions. He was stopped in his last outing by Alexei Kudin, and Kraniotakes will be looking to exploit any chinks in his armour.

Experienced Euro lightweights Diego Gonzalez (14-6) and Ivica Truscek (17-9) will also do battle in Kiev, with Gonzalez now settled in at 155lbs.

Gonzalez has fought for Cage Warriors three times, and last fought under the promotion's banner way back in 2006. He had an interesting double-header with Dan Hardy (one loss and one NC) and defeated Arni Isaksson. Since then he has competed on big shows around the world, including M-1, Superior Challenge and Sengoku.

If you look at Gonzalez's loss column, you'll only see world class names; Hardy, Akihiro Gono and Andre Winner for example. However, the Swede has taken good names of his own, recently submitting Jarkko Latomaki and defeating Nordin Asrih in M-1. His experience and skills will be hard to overlook in this matchup.

Truscek has also tussled with some of the best, also submitting Latomaki last year and taking on Cage Warriors champion Ivan Musardo, Niko Puhakka and Mairbek Taisumov in recent times.

"The Terror " has an even split with eight knockouts and eight submissions amongst his victories, with just one decision win. However, seven of his nine losses have come via submission, so he'll have to be on form to avoid the ground threat of his well travelled foe.

The UK's number-one flyweight Billy Harris (19-9) has been infamously hard to match, and thus hasn't fought since a 2010 win over Neil Seery at BAMMA. He gets a fight in Ukraine though, as he meets Canadian submission specialist Remi Morvan (8-6).

Both men are primarily ground fighters, but Harris has the experience against tough competition in his favour. Morvan has been more active and that may play to his advantage, but a good team surrounding him at Gym 01, Harris is sure to be ready for the test.

Another top flyweight matchup is on the card, with a real clash of styles coming into play when Neil Seery (9-8) meets Artemij Sitenkov (13-7).

Both men campaigned at higher weights for a while, and Sitenkov was regarded as one of the best bantamweights in Europe, but at a more suited 125lbs he will be tough to beat.

Irishman Seery, a boxer with five knockout wins, will no doubt be aiming to keep the fight standing. He was unable to do that when he met Harris, but a long time has passed and he'll have honed his takedown defence to try and keep the fight on his terms.

Sitenkov has submitted all thirteen of his victims, and he is a unorthodox grappler with a reportoire that is hard to match. It will be his first flyweight matchup so we're yet to see how the cut will affect him, but an on form Sitenkov is capable of snatching a win from anywhere.

A possible flyweight title matchup could be in the future of the victors, although no official word has come from Cage Warriors.

The rest of the card is strong with great matchups like Brum vs. Gontijo and Hope vs. Voitenko, which would be welcome additions to to any European bill.

Stay tuned to @YourMMA on Twitter and Facebook for all of the coverage from Cage Warriors 46.

The fights are available to stream live on Facebook (prelims) and via MMA Junkie (main card). Visit www.cagewarriors.com for more information.

Full Cage Warriors 46 Fight Card

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