Lightweight Lewis Corapi will be returning to competition on June 10 at CES MMA 36 in Lincoln, Rhode Island as he will meet former CES MMA lightweight champion Julian Lane on the fight card coming from the Twin River Casino.
Corapi (7-2) was scheduled to return to the CES MMA cage at the beginning of April at CES MMA 35 against Kennan Raymond. However, the fight was canceled just moments before it was about to start and Corapi explained what happened on that night during Tuesday’s edition of “The MMA Report Podcast.”
“Basically what happened was — I knew that Keenan was on his walk to the cage. I was getting finished up with my warmup,” Corapi explained. “I just hit pads and had a good sweat going. And one of the coaches who was in the locker room with us, one of their wives came in and kind of had this dejected look on her face. And she said ‘yeah, Kennan just fell. I don’t think you are fighting.’ I just kind of looked around the room to see what everyone else was thinking about and did not really believe it. What happened was I ran out of the locker room and followed the howls of pain. Saw him [Keenan] laying on the ground, holding onto his ankle and said some choice words to him.”
“Told him to get up and be a man. The athletic commission did not like that and had me to go back to the locker room,” he continued. “Tried to stay put for a minute and my coaches were like ‘yeah, it’s fine. We are still fighting. Let’s just keep warming up.’ Then about two or three minutes later, one of the guys from CES walks into the room. Says ‘Lewis, I am sorry to tell you this, but the fight is not happening.’ It broke my heart. It was really painful. It’s a lot of nerves and emotions that go into the fight. I had gone through a full camp. A full weight cut. All of the nerves that go along with fight day and the only thing I wanted to do is fight. That did not get to happen so it was a crazy thing. I don’t know how to describe it. It was wild.”
Check out Corapi’s complete interview from Tuesday’s edition of “The MMA Report Podcast” below and be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes and Stitcher.