Featuring exclusively on the MMA Plus Podcast, Cage Warriors bantamweight Cory ‘Capcom’ Tait (8-2) spoke of his up coming CWFC bantamweight title opportunity against Toni Tauru at Cage Warriors 72 on Sept. 13, among other topics.
Tait earned the right to compete for the Cage Warriors Bantamweight Championship upon his return to the promotion in February at CWFC 64. ‘Capcom’ submitted the highly rated James Pennington in the opening round after coming out on top of an entertaining grappling exchange.
With a record that’s littered with highlight reel knockouts, victory over Pennington tasted particularly sweet with the Londoner feeling that his ability was greatly under appreciated, and that the pre-fight expectation of Pennington taking the win highlighted his point.
Leading into the Pennington fight, Tait was labelled as a striker with the notion that Pennington’s strong grappling assault would expose a hole in his game. Perhaps the most over looked aspect of Tait’s credentials is that, despite having studied taekwondo from the age of five, his unorthodox striking flair is accompanied by extensive grappling knowledge, having also trained in Sambo for many years.
“Don’t get me wrong, [Pennington’s] not complete sh*t, but fighting me with them tactics is not really beneficial. I do it all, and that’s what makes me so dangerous; that’s why I’m fighting for the belt.”
“I’ve probably been grappling a lot longer than these guys have been. It makes me happy just to see the naivety of some of the critics, why am I hitting the ground with these guys if I’m a striker? If I’m a striker, and all these guys are taking me down, why has no one submitted me? Why have I been knocked out before I’ve been submitted? Those are the questions that people don’t ask. To me, that’s what this country lacks in MMA, they just see it literally as black and white.”
“I’m just happy that I’m in a fight like this (vs Tauru)! I guess I could have promoted the fight a little bit better, but at the same time I’ve got a habit of not trying to put my foot in my mouth, I don’t want to say too much and then the fight don’t go my way, a lot of that is personal to me. At the same time, these are the fights that I want to be in, I don’t want to be in these domestic fights where they think a guy like James Pennington is going to be my toughest fight, I prefer knowing that I’m fighting international competition.”
“That fight felt so good! I met Pennington a few years back, he was fighting on a small show and he’d come to my gym to weigh in, I remember he was very attitudey that day. I didn’t even know who he was, I think maybe that’s what got him pis*ed in the first place.”
Tait revealed that a week following the victory, he received a message from Pennigton offering money in exchange for a rematch. Pennington is said to have claimed that he didn’t know why he tapped to the Guillotine Choke submission, and Tait was surprised at Pennington’s apparent refusal to be humble.
“I haven’t really got anything good to say about this Pennington guy, he messaged me, like a week after, and offered me a ‘P’ (money) to rematch the fight! His words, I quote, he said; “I don’t know why I tapped”. Last time I checked it was because I fuc*ing elbowed him in the face and put my forearm in his neck, don’t give me bull*hit trying to rematch because you don’t know why you tapped, you tapped because I beat your arse, have a bit of respect.”
“When I say I’m a bit unknown, a black sheep, I just think people think I’m some kind of crazy-ghati striker, and it’s crazy that people say that because half the guys who fight me are cutting down from welterweight, half them guys are bigger than me and I’m still knocking them out and doing what I’m doing. I don’t know what more I can do to prove to these guys, and Pennington; I beat him in what, half a round? To me that was easy work, I knew I was going to do that. I don’t want to give away too many secrets but I knew that was going to happen, it was very satisfying to brush a guy that everybody thought was a lot sicker than he actually was.”
In further detail, Tait discussed his up coming fight with Toni Tauru for the Cage Warriors Bantamweight Championship, as well as his decision to change direction and switch camps to Lions Pride MMA with the likes of UFC light-heavyweight Jimi Manuwa, and what the future holds for ‘Capcom’.
Check out the MMA Plus Podcast below for the full exclusive interview.
MMAPLUS Podcast Episode 3 Schedule
UFC 177 Review – 0:45 mark
Cory Tate Interview – 27:15 mark
Cage Warriors 72 Predictions – 45:18 mark
BAMMA 16 Competition – 56:24 mark
Hot Topic (Dana White UFC Macau) – 57:20 mark
Photo by Mark Blundell
