Bellator star Joe Taimanglo’s three rules of fighting: Talk smack, smile, show up

Joe Taimanglo was upwards of a nine-to-one underdog heading into his Bellator 159 main event fight against Darrion Caldwell last month. Very few people gave the Yona, Guam native a chance, but he defied the odds once again by tapping out the then-undefeated prospect in the third round.

Taimanglo found little success in the first two rounds, however. Caldwell was able to score a few takedowns and looked good. He limited Taimanglo’s offense, but “Baby” says he was never in danger or hurt throughout the first 10 minutes. That said, Taimanglo knew that he was down on the scorecards going into the final five minutes, and that he had to act fast if he wanted to walk away with the win.

“Well, I did feel like I was underneath on the scorecards,” Taimanglo told BloodyElbow.com. “All he did was just get the takedown and score a few shots on the feet. But nothing really effective to put me away. That’s how he’s fought a lot of his fights. So I was gonna make that fight be just like each and every one of his fights. He’s a point scorer. If the fighter is just as game as me, he takes them to decisions, and he’ll win it off winning every round just by a little. I learned from that kind of mistake from his previous opponents, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake. Yeah, he may have won 10 minutes of the fight, but it just took nine seconds for me to take away all that.”

Heading into the third and final round, Taimanglo …

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