Rising Bantamweight Cory Vom Baur Ready for Next Step When He Faces Joe Soto

While he hasn’t fought a lot in 2013, Northwest bantamweight prospect Cory Vom Baur is making the best of his limited opportunities.

After having made his successful CageSport debut last December, Vom Baur returned to the promotion in April and defeated current WSOF fighter Josh Rettinghouse for the CageSport 135-pound championship.

“Josh was a good opponent and I thought I performed pretty well,” said Vom Baur. “I finished it in the fifth round, which is always good to get a finish.

“I think I’ve improved a lot since then in all areas of my game training out of Sports Lab now.”

Vom Baur credits his training at Sports Lab for taking him to the next level.

“They do a really good job of producing well-rounded fighters,” said Vom Baur. “I have a kickboxing coach, a boxing coach, and a BJJ coach, and train on a consistent basis, five times a week.

“Really in this sport you have to be evolving in all aspects of your game, you have to be diversified and a complete fighter. At Sports Lab I can train on all aspects of my game.”

Vom Baur (6-2) may very well need every tool in his arsenal when he makes his debut for Tachi Palace Fights this Thursday in Lemoore, Calif., against former Bellator champion Joe Soto (11-2).

“I don’t know exactly what I have to do in order to get the win, but I do know that I have to punch him more times than he does to me and do more damage than he does to me,” said Vom Baur. “However that goes down, it’s going to go down.

“If you look at our skills, they probably cancel each other out, so I think it’s a pretty even match-up.”

Vom Baur acknowledges that his fight against Soto is the most important of his career thus far. But as he told MMAWeekly.com, when you get to this stage in the game, every fight is the most important fight of your career.

“That’s kind of the way this sport is, when you’re winning, you tend to rise up in competition and your next fight is always the most important fight in your career,” he said. “I’ve won my last fight (before Rettinghouse) and it’s not like you put on the breaks at that point, you’re always continuing up the ladder.

“If I beat (Soto), I’m definitely more on the map than I am now. I’m looking to make a lot of noise in this sport and it will put me up in the rankings and in that category of top-notch fighters, so that makes it the most important fight of my career so far as well.”