Issue 114

May 2014

Cage Warriors bantamweight Cory Tait reckons he’s got the sugary-sweet MMA skills to prove he’s Britain’s greatest 135’lber

For someone so young, Cory Tait has been through his fair share of trials and tribulations in mixed martial arts. Since he made his professional MMA debut in 2010 as a 22-year-old, life-long martial artist Tait has won titles in two different weight classes, but also suffered two crushing defeats.

While some young fighters would have crumbled beneath the pressure the Londoner was under, Tait, ever the optimist, decided to look for the positives in his defeats to James Lutman in 2010 and Spencer Hewitt two years ago. 

 ”I’m actually glad I’ve had those losses,” he says. “I think very deeply about my losses and my wins; you have to grow from them. I’m blessed I had those losses earlier on in my career because if it happened now they would mean more and would knock me back a hell of a lot further than they did. I went away and came back much better. It was like some typical movie type stuff.” 

Indeed, it has been a movie-like experience for ‘Capcom’ over the last two years. Following a devastating knockout loss for the UCMMA bantamweight title against Hewitt in February 2012, Tait took some time off to refocus and come back stronger than ever.

“After the Spencer Hewitt fight, the week afterward I felt so empty in my head. I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” he explains. “Taking the time off allowed me a chance to get back to enjoying fighting once again. I didn’t want to take too many other fights with everything I was feeling because I wouldn’t be fighting for the reason I got into MMA. It allowed me to rest and train a little bit more.”

After finishing his next two opponents, Tait finally got his chance to exact revenge when he rematched Hewitt for the bantamweight title and this time things went according to plan for Capcom. 

“I didn’t realise it until after I beat him, but I’d been thinking about the fight ever since that night,” recalls Tait. “It was constantly on my mind, but I didn’t realise it until I’d fought him again and beat him. It was like the mission was finally over.”

With one mission complete and UCMMA featherweight and bantamweight championship belts sitting atop a mantelpiece in the Gintas CSD gym he runs with his longtime coach, Gintas Bukaukas, Tait needed a new challenge, which ultimately drove him to sign with Cage Warriors Fighting Championship, the company he made his professional debut with. And according to Tait, he’s there to add a little excitement to their burgeoning bantamweight division.

He explains: “I feel like that at the stage MMA is in right now, it needs someone like me. Yeah, Cage Warriors has a stacked bantamweight division but there isn’t anyone who is exciting. I match up good with anybody in their bantamweight division. You put me in a fight with anyone in that division and it’s a main event fight, but without me you can’t really do it. 

“The way I see it is you’re getting a tonne of grappling and 25-minute decisions from a lot of the bantamweights. I think it’s better for everyone that I’m there now. I’ve already dominated in UCMMA and I’m looking to do the same in Cage Warriors. 

“Coming to Cage Warriors will help prove even more that I’m one of the best fighters at bantamweight in the UK. I don’t think anyone can keep my name out of the conversation now.”

Although he’s finished every single one of his eight wins, with either a breathtaking knockout or devastating submission, Tait is still seen as an underdog in many of his fights, to the point he remembers seeing a tweet before his last fight against James Pennington that said he had only a 9% chance of winning. Tait won in 2:35 of the first round via guillotine choke.

“It’s kind of shocking how people still see me as the underdog in fights,” he sighs. “I was a UCMMA two-division champion, and some people may not think much about that, but that’s the same place (UFC 205lb’er) Jimi Manuwa was a dominant champion. It’s still run by the people who brought the likes of Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort to the UK. I took on big fights when I was there. 

“It’s funny to me when people put James Pennington way, way above me in their rankings. I don’t get mad about it, but I do think to myself that I must be seeing something else when I watch these guys fight as I just don’t think they’re better than me. If everyone truly believes that then it really motivates me to train that much harder.” 

After a convincing submission finish in his Cage Warriors return, which saw Tait wrap a guillotine choke around Pennington’s neck and crank it until he was forced to tap out, Tait is excited to continue his ascent up the bantamweight division to continue proving those who doubt him just how wrong they actually are.