Carnage: “If I beat Saki, I will definitely beat Spong”

Australian champion Nathan ‘Carnage’ Corbett (57-4, 45 KO’s) had a tough GLORY debut, meeting Tyrone Spong (90-5, 60 KO’s) in the main event of GLORY 11 CHICAGO for a grudge rematch with a significant amount of bragging rights on the line.

Corbett ended up losing the fight by KO as Spong deployed his lightning left-hook repeatedly and showed just how much he had improved from their 2009 meeting.

Now there is a chance they could meet for a third time, in the GLORY 15 ISTANBUL tournament final, but Corbett says if they do, meaning he will have beaten Gokhan Saki (79-16, 56 KO’s) to get there, then a win over Spong will be in the bag.

“This time if I beat Saki and then fight Spong it will be completely different. If I win the semi-final then the final is in the bag. The confidence will be so high, I will be fast and loose, not like that stiffness I had in Chicago,” Corbett said as he was interviewed on the eve of battle.

“If I get the first fight I will win the second… I have won eight-man tournaments where you get through the first and second fight and in the final you’re like ‘that’s it now, I have come so far I am not going to lose.’

“In the finals it all becomes mental. If I win the first fight then in the second I go straight into that mindset of, ‘I’m here to win. F--k him.’”

Of course, beating Saki alone is a tall order. The ‘Turkish Tyson’ is one of the sport’s demolition men - just look at the frightening beating he put on Daniel Ghita at GLORY 6 ISTANBUL. However, Saturday’s event is his light-heavyweight debut, having dropped from heavyweight, and that brings question marks.

“I do wonder how Saki has got on with cutting to this weight. He’s had to make a big change in the diet and everything so that’s gonna be interesting, to see how that turns out,” muses Corbett.

“Has it made him a better athlete or has it cost him power? Energy could be the key question. And he hasn’t fought since the loss to Verhoeven. That could be a confidence thing.”

Confidence is a key theme of Corbett’s current stream of thought. He says that the showing he had against Spong in Chicago last year was the product of an all-time low confidence in the pre-fight period, something he had never really experienced before.

“He was on a five-fight win streak and knocking everybody out whereas I hadn’t fought in a year. Well I had one fight but it lasted ten seconds so that didn’t really do anything for me, whereas Spong was on a roll where he was beating Bonjasky and winning tournaments and stuff,” he says.

“So that plus all the pressure on me from the aftermath of the first fight, everybody saying I had to go out there and knock him out, plus the jet lag and traveling to the US the week of the fight and everything… I don’t know.

“I couldn’t sleep really, during fight week, I was using sleeping tablets but then they made me feel sluggish next day. In future for a fight like that I would get out there at least three weeks before.

“So I think what went wrong was self-doubt. I felt comfortable once I got into the fight, once I was right in front of him I was like ‘oh this is fine.’ The punches weren’t hurting, what was bothering me was the leg kick.

“If you look at the fight it wasn’t like I made a certain mistake, I wasn’t caught out with my hands by my waist. My hand was just a centimeter too low to stop that left hook and at the end of the day I think I just got caught out by a very good counter puncher.”

Now the backdrop is Istanbul not Chicago, but it is still a location which has required Corbett to travel halfway around the world. But this time he says that he has none of the problems which plagued his last outing.

“The only pressure I feel is that I don’t want to have my second GLORY fight and lose, and go 0-2 in GLORY. Especially after spending an entire career bashing people up and winning all my fights,” he says.

“So there is only that and then the normal nerves you get before a fight. Like right before the bell rings and you’re like why the f--k am I doing this again? But once the bell rings you’re good to go.

“Right now I just feel hard, solid. Like a piece of wood. I could not feel more different from how I felt in Chicago. Completely different.

“In Chicago I was a mess, all over the place, the lack of sleep and the jet lag and the nerves just f--ked me up. This time I don’t have any of that. I had a great camp in Thailand and I am ready to go.”

Corbett’s fight with Saki forms one semi-final of the GLORY 15 ISTANBUL Light-Heavyweight Championship Tournament. In the other bracket, Spong faces the Brazilian bomber Saulo Cavalari (28-2, 18 KO’s).

The two winners will face each other in the final, with the ultimate victor walking away with the World Light-Heavyweight Title, the $200,000 grand prize and the right to call himself the best 205lb striker on the planet.

GLORY 15 ISTANBUL airs today, Saturday April 12 on SPIKE TV at 8pm ET, and in over 150 territories worldwide. Check your local listings for details.