Photo by Will Paul/CES MMA
Lewis “Pretty Boy” Corapi is back from traveling the world and looking for a win at CES 51
Lewis “Pretty Boy” Corapi makes his return to the cage on August 3 when he takes on Jacob Bohn at CES 51. Corapi has spent the past year or so traveling the world on an extended honeymoon. The last time he tried to take a fight back in 2017, he was injured and didn’t have enough time to prepare so his coach at Sityodtong Boston and Broadway Jiu Jitsu wouldn’t let him fight because he wasn’t ready. But now he is and he is exited for it.
“Gung ho for it, absolutely.”
Fighting for a living wasn’t always the plan. It started because he heard of a buddy’s brother taking classes at the gym Kenny Florian and Marcus Davis trained at. So he and his friend decided to try out a class. He barely made it through the warm up but twelve years later he has a an 8-3 as a professional fighter.
It’s been a whirlwind for Corapi who is 29 years old. He started training twelve years ago, he lived a normal life working in corporate America, then he decided to sell his condo and travel the world coming back to Boston to train and fight. For him, he is living his dream.
“I make lots of jokes about living the dream, when I wake up early and I go train, but this is really the dream. I don’t know how anyone can complain about this.”
But there is a second part to the dream and that is to make it to the UFC.
“There’s Bellator, there’s One FC, there’s all these other promotions that in 2018 are viable alternatives to make a living. But the UFC is still the UFC and that’s been my goal since I was an amateur.”
Before he can think about the UFC, he has to get past Bohn. In his last fight, Bohn picked up a win a t CES NY in a fight of the night performance against Kenny Foster, a fight that every fight fan would want to watch. But Corapi wouldn’t know that, he doesn’t watch tape of his opponents, he is more concerned with what he is going to do in the fight.
“I have found that being worrying about myself, worrying about what I want to do and seeing how he is going to react is the name of the game for me.”
Many in the sport of MMA believe staying active and fighting often is important to do well. They believe in the tale called ring rust. Though many including former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz have proved those theorists wrong. And like Cruz, Corapi doesn’t believe his 2 year layoff from fighting will affect him on August 2.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, I had another period, maybe six or seven years ago where I took a year off from fighting, I was still in the gym but just hadn’t been in the cage. As far as ring rust, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’ve always been a physical person, I’ve always really enjoyed working out, I really enjoy training for training’s sake. I have a hard time seeing myself getting in the cage and being like, oh I haven’t been in here for a year and half, I’m not going to perform as well. If I don’t perform as well, it’s not due to ring rust, it’s due to me sucking in the cage. Plain and simple.”
You can watch Corapi face Bohn on AXS TV on August 3.
