Leading U.K. promotion Cage Warriors Fighting Championship has instated a 125-pound women’s title and will crown a new champion in 2012. CWFC director Graham Boylan and matchmaker Ian Dean confirmed the news with MMARising.com today and discussed plans for the coming year.

Cage Warriors’ first and only women’s champion, Rosi Sexton, captured her title in 2005 before travelling outside of the U.K. for bouts in BodogFight and EliteXC. Sexton’s title was later retired, but she is expected to be among the top contenders for the newly-created vacant championship in 2012.

“I’m very excited about the 125-pound women’s fights that we will be putting on in 2012,” Boylan told MMARising.com. “We are at present looking at the [schedule] and we will announce something pretty soon. There are some awesome female fighters out there at that weight and we’ve got a brand new beautiful Cage Warriors Fighting Championship belt looking for a home in 2012.”

In the past year alone, seven female fighters have competed for Cage Warriors in a total of five bouts. All but one of the fights took place at 125 pounds and the promotion has a number of top contenders. In addition to Sexton (12-2-0), who sports a perfect 5-0 record in Cage Warriors, others in contention for the new title include Irish standout Aisling Daly (13-2-0) and rising German star Sheila Gaff (9-4-1).

Cage Warriors Fighting Championship 125-pound women’s title.

Cage Warriors matchmaker Ian Dean, who has been instrumental in putting together the promotion’s women’s bouts, believes that establishing a title at 125 pounds will allow fighters to compete at their natural weight class without having to move up or down for prestigious fights.

“I personally think the 125-pound women’s division is one of the most overlooked in the whole of MMA right now,” Dean says. “There are already lots of talented fighters in that division, and for too long they have had to choose to either move up in weight to a stacked 135-pound division to fight in Strikeforce or cut a crazy amount of weight to make 115 pounds in Bellator.

“We said earlier this year that we wanted to have a 125-pound title,” he adds. “Due to injuries, that never happened, but it still remained on our agenda. Now we have this amazing brand new title. It only underlines our intention to push this division and the talented athletes who have engaged in some great fights over the past year.”

Cage Warriors will hold its first event of 2012 on February 2nd in Amman, Jordan, before returning to its home base of London, England for CWFC 45 on February 18th. A date and location for the first women’s title fight next year has not yet been determined and the promotion may feature one or more contender bouts to establish the top two fighters, who will then square off for the championship.