Midway through 2008, if you ran down the list of champions in the WEC, the two considered most likely to still be holding their belts when “jingle bells” started playing around town would have been Urijah Faber and Miguel Torres.
But in this game, there are no guarantees, and no one reigns forever. This fact was made abundantly clear when Mike Brown’s fists separated Faber from the featherweight crown in November. Torres defends his bantamweight title for the second time tonight (VERSUS 8pm ET / 5pm PT) against hard-hitting Manny Tapia, and he insists that he’s not about to join Faber on the contenders’ list.
“Whenever I start a training camp, or even when I start training, I always think ‘I’m not the best fighter in the world,’” said Torres. “There’s always someone out there younger, faster, stronger, or training with a better team. As soon as you start thinking that you’re the best, that’s when you start falling off. I never think I’m the best and I always strive to work harder than my opponent or the guy out there I’ve never heard of who is waiting for me to fall.”
A longtime subscriber to the notion that fights are won in the gym, Torres won’t have to worry about Tapia coming out of nowhere to sneak up on him and take his belt – literally or figuratively. The East Chicago, Indiana product knows his challenger well, he’s studied him, and stylistically, he won’t have to look for him when the bell rings.
“I look at him as a real dangerous opponent,” said Torres of Tapia. “He has real heavy hands, I know he likes to box and throw a lot of blows, and he likes to stay on his feet. But I want to fight the guy in his element – so if he likes to box, I’m gonna fight standing up and try to knock him out.”
That’s a bold statement, especially considering Torres’ acumen on the ground. But having come up the hard way while facing all types of styles over the course of his eight year pro career, Torres is comfortable wherever a fight may take him – just look at his June win over Yoshiro Maeda, a Fight of the Year candidate that saw both champion and challenger wage war everywhere in the WEC’ cage. Yet for MMA purists, while a toe-to-toe standup brawl is nice, there’s something about Torres going for submission after submission like he did in his title-winning effort over Chase Beebe in February. It was the type of dazzling ground display that can expose tons of new fans to the exciting intricacies of the fight game.
“I think I’ve opened a lot of eyes,” said Torres. “A lot of black belts in jiu-jitsu who have never fought MMA come in and try to use their jiu-jitsu and it’s not the same. Jiu-jitsu for grappling and for sport is different than for MMA, and what’s happened is, I’ve been able to make a bridge between the two worlds and the fans are really appreciating it now. They see that mindset of me thinking ahead of the game and attacking and they appreciate it a lot and it makes me real happy.”
An even bigger development – a more personal one – is that Torres is now rightfully seen as one of the sport’s true stars. It’s something that wouldn’t have even been possible when Torres was coming up the ranks fighting anyone and everyone. Back then, the UFC only had the 155 pound weight class, and even that got phased out for a while. For featherweights and bantamweights there were no true showcases in the United States for their skills. Then the WEC got bought by Zuffa, VERSUS swooped in with a national television deal, and suddenly viewers got exposed to the talent and charisma of fighters like Torres.
“This is awesome,” he said during a press gathering in Las Vegas on the day of the UFC 91 card featuring Brock Lesnar and Randy Couture. “When I was fighting at 135 and there was no place to go, everybody was like ‘dude, you gotta put on weight and get big,’ but I always had faith in it. I started seeing Urijah fight at 145, the weight class started getting big, and I knew one day someone was gonna step up and put us in the spotlight. The WEC stepped up and I’m happy to be here.”
Torres isn’t getting complacent at the top though. Like the anime character Afro Samurai, once you’re Number One, the work is just beginning.
“The work’s getting harder,” he laughs. “I’m at a level now to where I have a big bull’s eye on my back, and I love it because everyone’s coming after me. There’s a line of guys waiting to fight me, and I’m the Afro Samurai waiting at the top of the mountain for them.”
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