Mike de la Torre had no idea how to cut weight when he first entered the UFC. He didn’t know what to eat. He didn’t know how to water load. De la Torre was an admitted novice at all of those things.
The bantamweight entered the UFC as a prospect, but almost relied solely on his natural abilities. Not anymore.
Picking the brain of pros like Benson Henderson at the MMA Lab in Arizona, de la Torre has cleaned up his lifestyle and making 135 pounds was easy in his last fight. The result bore that out: a first-round knockout of Tiago Trator in February.
“I wasn’t really prepared to have a real training camp before,” de la Torre told MMAFighting.com. “Now, I figured it out, how to cut my weight now where I’m not depleted, where I’m not starving myself and I’m just trying to repeat the process right now. Everything is falling into place. I feel real good and real confident right now.”
De la Torre (13-4-1) got off to a rough start in the UFC, falling to Mark Bocek by split decision and then losing by first-round submission to Brian Ortega in July 2014. Ortega ended up popping for performance-enhancing drugs, so the bout was ruled a no contest.
After that, de la Torre made the decision to change his lifestyle. A loss to Trator could have spelled an end to his UFC run. The San Diego native has added more fruits and vegetables to his diet and now eats almost completely clean. He also learned how to water load, which he never did before.
“At my last fight, I didn’t have to use a sauna, didn’t have to do a bath,” de la Torre said. “The weight just came off naturally. I’m just trying to keep it like that from now on.”
De la Torre, 28, meets Maximo Blanco at The Ultimate Fighter 21 Finale on Sunday in Las Vegas. Blanco is an all-action fighter and de la Torre believes someone like that can bring out the best in him.
“He’s one of the old-school guys,” de la Torre said. “I really like his style of fighting. Personally, for me and him to mix it up, I think it’ll be an exciting fight. Because I like to come forward, too. I love opponents who come forward. He’s not going to back away and shy away from me.”
De la Torre has been a professional MMA fighter for almost a decade, but has matured immensely since leaving home to train at the MMA Lab about two years ago. Still only 28 years old, de la Torre has leaned on veterans like Henderson and Efrain Escudero down in Arizona.
“You can tell when Benson comes in he’s like a role model that everybody looks up to and everybody wants to train like him,” de la Torre said. “He brings out that 100 percent out of you, that 1 percent better every day attitude that you want to have in the gym.”
And Henderson also has plenty knowledge about cutting weight. The former UFC lightweight champion was an oversized 155-pounder for a long time and never had issues making weight. De la Torre has followed his lead and he wants to keep it going against Blanco.
“I felt like [against Trator] I had the power I have when I’m fighting at 55,” de la Torre said. “I think it showed in the fight. When I was throwing, I was landing and I was hurting the guy. I felt like I had my full power and I just hope I can do it again like that.”