Miguel Torres: Fedor Should ‘Man Up or Get Left Behind’

Filed under: UFC, Strikeforce, NewsIt’s not often Fedor Emelianenko and Miguel Torres are talked about in the same conversation.

Fedor is a soft-spoken 230-pound heavyweight from the heart of Russia. Torres is a 135-pound Mexican-American bantamweigh…

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Miguel TorresIt’s not often Fedor Emelianenko and Miguel Torres are talked about in the same conversation.

Fedor is a soft-spoken 230-pound heavyweight from the heart of Russia. Torres is a 135-pound Mexican-American bantamweight living in the shadow of Chicago, and a few glances at his Twitter feed shows he’s far from shy. Physical and social equals, they are not.

Fedor has been synonymous with the sport of mixed martial arts for years – so much so that he needs only one name. But only in the last three years did Torres get widespread recognition.

There was a time two years ago when Fedor was at the top of most pound-for-pound discussions, and Torres himself had entered the top-5 mix. But beyond that, the two had little reason to be mentioned together.

But they might be more alike than most people think. Torres believes the similarities are there – and he believes Fedor, following back-to-back losses for the first time in his career, needs to do just what he did last year after suffering a similar, formerly unthinkable skid: Pack the bags and change things up, or he’ll only have himself to blame.

Miguel Torres to Meet Brad Pickett at UFC 130

Filed under: UFC, NewsNot yet a week after a win in his UFC debut, Miguel Torres already has another fight on his agenda.

The former WEC bantamweight champion will fight Brad Pickett at UFC 130 on May 28. Heavy.com reported the matchup on Friday, and…

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Miguel TorresNot yet a week after a win in his UFC debut, Miguel Torres already has another fight on his agenda.

The former WEC bantamweight champion will fight Brad Pickett at UFC 130 on May 28. Heavy.com reported the matchup on Friday, and sources close to the bout confirmed to MMA Fighting the fight has been agreed to.

TUF 13 Coaches Not Set, but Faber, Torres Want Shot Eventually

Filed under: UFC, NewsDETROIT – Though the tryouts for Season 13 of “The Ultimate Fighter” took place earlier this month, and the show is scheduled to begin taping in January, UFC president Dana White said no decisions have been made yet about the coac…

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DETROIT – Though the tryouts for Season 13 of “The Ultimate Fighter” took place earlier this month, and the show is scheduled to begin taping in January, UFC president Dana White said no decisions have been made yet about the coaches.

“We haven’t decided who the coaches are going to be yet,” White told a small group of reporters on Wednesday after the press conference for UFC 123. “I’ve been on the road for two weeks now and I don’t go home till Sunday. Then I’m back on the road again, like Wednesday. So I’ve got to get back in the office Monday and Tuesday and get some (stuff) done.”

Season 13 will feature welterweight and middleweight fighters. Candidates for the show went through tryouts in Las Vegas on Nov. 4. The Spike reality competition last featured welterweights in Season 9 and middleweights in Season 11.

Miguel Torres vs. Antonio Banuelos Expected for UFC 126

Filed under: UFC, WEC, NewsFormer WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Torres will fight Antonio Banuelos at UFC 126.

The news of the fight was first reported by Heavy.com Thursday afternoon and MMA Fighting has confirmed with sources close to the bout t…

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Former WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Torres will fight Antonio Banuelos at UFC 126.

The news of the fight was first reported by Heavy.com Thursday afternoon and MMA Fighting has confirmed with sources close to the bout that it has been agreed to.

With the recent announcement of the merger of the WEC into the UFC, it will be the first UFC appearance for both fighters.

Miguel Torres: I Still Have a Lot of Things To Do

Filed under: WECBROOMFIELD, Colo. – Eighteen months removed from his last win, and coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his 40-fight professional career, Miguel Torres made no secret that something had to change.

For the first time in…

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BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Eighteen months removed from his last win, and coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his 40-fight professional career, Miguel Torres made no secret that something had to change.

For the first time in a long time, Torres put his fighting life in the hands of a coach, abandoning his pattern of self-training that worked for years – right up until the point it didn’t work with losses to Brian Bowles and Joseph Benavidez.

So it should come as a surprise to no one at WEC 51 on Thursday night that when Torres began his walk to the cage, absent was the mariachi entrance music that had become as much a trademark for him as the relentless pace he would keep in fights.

No Longer His Own Boss, Miguel Torres Turns to Firas Zahabi for WEC 51

Filed under: WECBROOMFIELD, Colo. – Brad Pitt, as Tyler Durden in “Fight Club,” says, “It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.”

To say Miguel Torres “lost everything” might be something of a stretch. But after back-to-…

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Miguel TorresBROOMFIELD, Colo. – Brad Pitt, as Tyler Durden in “Fight Club,” says, “It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.”

To say Miguel Torres “lost everything” might be something of a stretch. But after back-to-back losses for the first time in a career spanning 40 professional fights (and a dozen others that exist off the books), Torres definitely reached that type of moment of critical mass.

After years of training himself at his Torres Martial Arts Academy in Hammond, Ind., near his hard-luck, blue-collar hometown of East Chicago, Torres was living the good life as his own boss. Sure, he made sporadic trips to drill with coaches like Robert Drysdale and Mark DellaGrotte. He rolled with Frank Mir and Kenny Florian, Rashad Evans and Kurt Pellegrino.

But when you’ve never been knocked out and someone pops you in the chin and puts you to sleep and takes your gold, and when you’ve never been made to quit and someone cracks your head open and chokes you until you tap … it must feel like you’ve lost everything. So you go out and get a coach.