Miguel Torres was one of the best professional mixed martial artists in the world, but he wasn't training like it.
In 2008 and 2009, as the World Extreme Cagefighting bantamweight champion, Torres could have trained at any gym on earth and pushed himself in sparring sessions with world-class opponents, but instead he kept working out at his own gym in Hammond, Ind., where he was the owner, manager, trainer and even the guy who answered the phones. Torres always wanted the kids from his neighborhood to see that successful people didn't have to leave: They could stay right where they were and give back to the community.
It was a noble thought, but Torres now says it stunted his growth as a fighter.
"It was a lot to handle at once," Torres said. "I've never been – no one in my family or involved in my career has ever been in the situation that I've been in, where they've owned a business, they've been a world-champion fighter, where they've been a pro fighter, even. All this is new to me. I was running everything on a whim. Whatever I thought was right, I was trying to do, and it was working."
At least, it was working until Aug. 9, 2009, when Torres -- who had been viewed as practically unbeatable in the bantamweight division -- was knocked out in the first round of his fight with Brian Bowles, costing him the bantamweight belt and dropping his record to 37-2.
Now that Torres is preparing to return to the cage on Saturday night for the first time since that loss, taking on Joseph Benavidez at WEC 47, he says the loss to Bowles was exactly what he needed to get a fresh start on training.
"A loss at that point is the best thing that could have happened in my career, because it makes me take it to a more professional level," Torres said. "The fact that I was able to do all those things with little or no coaching and run a business and do all these other things at the same time, I think, is just a testament to my hard work and my skill. I think now that I'm getting trained well and I'm actually dieting and doing conditioning it's going to make you see a lot more dangerous Miguel Torres, a lot more focused and a smarter fighter."
Torres mentioned several people who helped him step up his training, but the two most important were Robert Drysdale, a world-champion Brazilian jiu jitsu player and MMA coach, and Kurt Pellegrino, the UFC lightweight who's preparing for his own fight in March.
"I had to seek out partners that can give me a good challenge and guys that can raise the learning curve for me and I sought out Robert Drysdale," Torres said. "He had some guys come down to help me train, and just being in that environment – you think you know a lot about jiu jitsu and then you get into an environment like that, and it's just like being in a laboratory. I got to experiment on a lot of new stuff adding a lot of things to my game to make my game a lot more dangerous on the ground."
After soaking up all the knowledge he could from Drysdale, Torres briefly went to Chicago to spend some time with his young daughter before heading to New Jersey to train at Pellegrino's gym, where he says he encountered a lot of sparring partners who were able to emulate the style he'll see in the cage against Benavidez.
"Kurt had a lot of training partners that were similar to Joseph's style, very, very great wrestlers, good, aggressive wrestlers, same size, same height, and they were already fighters," Torres said. "They already had 10, 15 fights. And they are good boxers. A lot of good boxing gyms out here in Jersey, a lot of different training partners to choose from, and Kurt, I think, is just a bigger version of Benavidez. And for me, it was a natural fit. I knew Kurt already. We had a great relationship. And I just – it fit well."
If Torres beats Benavidez, he'll likely get a shot at re-claiming the WEC bantamweight belt, which Bowles will defend against Dominick Cruz in Saturday night's main event. Torres said he looks forward to that challenge, and that he thinks the competition he's faced in the gym has him ready for the best competition in the world in the cage.
"Guys like Brian, guys like Dominick, guys like Benavidez, these guys raise the bar," Torres said. "And you need that. That competition makes you a better fighter."
In 2008 and 2009, as the World Extreme Cagefighting bantamweight champion, Torres could have trained at any gym on earth and pushed himself in sparring sessions with world-class opponents, but instead he kept working out at his own gym in Hammond, Ind., where he was the owner, manager, trainer and even the guy who answered the phones. Torres always wanted the kids from his neighborhood to see that successful people didn't have to leave: They could stay right where they were and give back to the community.
It was a noble thought, but Torres now says it stunted his growth as a fighter.
"It was a lot to handle at once," Torres said. "I've never been – no one in my family or involved in my career has ever been in the situation that I've been in, where they've owned a business, they've been a world-champion fighter, where they've been a pro fighter, even. All this is new to me. I was running everything on a whim. Whatever I thought was right, I was trying to do, and it was working."
At least, it was working until Aug. 9, 2009, when Torres -- who had been viewed as practically unbeatable in the bantamweight division -- was knocked out in the first round of his fight with Brian Bowles, costing him the bantamweight belt and dropping his record to 37-2.
Now that Torres is preparing to return to the cage on Saturday night for the first time since that loss, taking on Joseph Benavidez at WEC 47, he says the loss to Bowles was exactly what he needed to get a fresh start on training.
"A loss at that point is the best thing that could have happened in my career, because it makes me take it to a more professional level," Torres said. "The fact that I was able to do all those things with little or no coaching and run a business and do all these other things at the same time, I think, is just a testament to my hard work and my skill. I think now that I'm getting trained well and I'm actually dieting and doing conditioning it's going to make you see a lot more dangerous Miguel Torres, a lot more focused and a smarter fighter."
Torres mentioned several people who helped him step up his training, but the two most important were Robert Drysdale, a world-champion Brazilian jiu jitsu player and MMA coach, and Kurt Pellegrino, the UFC lightweight who's preparing for his own fight in March.
"I had to seek out partners that can give me a good challenge and guys that can raise the learning curve for me and I sought out Robert Drysdale," Torres said. "He had some guys come down to help me train, and just being in that environment – you think you know a lot about jiu jitsu and then you get into an environment like that, and it's just like being in a laboratory. I got to experiment on a lot of new stuff adding a lot of things to my game to make my game a lot more dangerous on the ground."
After soaking up all the knowledge he could from Drysdale, Torres briefly went to Chicago to spend some time with his young daughter before heading to New Jersey to train at Pellegrino's gym, where he says he encountered a lot of sparring partners who were able to emulate the style he'll see in the cage against Benavidez.
"Kurt had a lot of training partners that were similar to Joseph's style, very, very great wrestlers, good, aggressive wrestlers, same size, same height, and they were already fighters," Torres said. "They already had 10, 15 fights. And they are good boxers. A lot of good boxing gyms out here in Jersey, a lot of different training partners to choose from, and Kurt, I think, is just a bigger version of Benavidez. And for me, it was a natural fit. I knew Kurt already. We had a great relationship. And I just – it fit well."
If Torres beats Benavidez, he'll likely get a shot at re-claiming the WEC bantamweight belt, which Bowles will defend against Dominick Cruz in Saturday night's main event. Torres said he looks forward to that challenge, and that he thinks the competition he's faced in the gym has him ready for the best competition in the world in the cage.
"Guys like Brian, guys like Dominick, guys like Benavidez, these guys raise the bar," Torres said. "And you need that. That competition makes you a better fighter."