While there has been word spreading around there could be an event in Atlantic Canada, Warrior-1 (W-1) has made it official and it will be making the trip out to Halifax, on October 23rd.

The Toronto based mixed martial arts promotion felt it was a no brainer to do a show in this area.”There is a market there right now that is kind of dead,” says Jack Bateman, W-1 Founder/President.”The mma market is dead out in the area right now and in my trip out there, the population was really kind of hoping for it and kind of hurting. This is a test to see if something can open back up.”W-1 has only been in the mma game for about two years but it has made some big splashes.

While the may be doing shows only in Quebec they have TV deals with The Score Television Network in Canada and on Fox Sports Net in the United States. The company has also brought in big name fighters like former Pride star Denis Kang, UFC veterans like Shoine Carter, Vernon White, Jason MacDonald and the first Canadian UFC champion, Carlos Newton.

While the company has been bringing in top mma talent, they want to have a mix of everything on this event.”I got some really great names coming on this card,” says Bateman.”It will be a typical W-1 card, star studded. While we took a lot of local talent, we took the top local talent and got it on this show. Our goal is to help push Eastern Canada mma and give them a national stage to showcase themselves. As well we still have the TV deals and we still need to entertain the rest of North America. So there will be some big names on this card and I think you guys will be pretty pleased when you see it.”

While W-1 will be bringing in quality fights on October 23rd, they can not officially say any names at this time because all the fighter contracts have not been signed, W-1 is expecting to release that information in the next couple of weeks and has said that he has been welcomed with open arms by the mma community in Atlantic Canada.

There has been one fight reported as topmmanews.com has said that a featherweight bout between Bellator veteran Will Romero and Dartmouth’s Tristan Johnson is going to be on the bill.While the show is still two months away, you have to think that Toronto is still on W-1’s radar.

The big news last weekend was that the province of Ontario legalized mma starting in 2011. this means that promoters can try and put on shows in Canada’s biggest market for the sport. While Bateman is happy about the news, he is going to wait and see how everything plays out.”The whole reason for this company existing because of the possibility of Toronto and Ontario opening up,” says Bateman.

“Two and a half years ago when I started the company, the goal was to have a few shows under our belt and have a good name behind us so, if it opens up we can slide right in and be the big boy in town outside the UFC and other major promotions. Right now we have no information at this point expect that sometime in 2011, mma will be legalized and that is all we know. There are some hard plans so we can plan our work and wait for to get information from the government.”

While W-1 may be ready for the future ahead, it is preparing for the now and that now is in Halifax on October 23rd. Stay tuned to Haligonia Sports and we will keep you updated as more information is released.

Derek Leblanc is a Halifax based sports writer and broadcaster. Email Derek at derekleblanc34@gmail.com.