(Photo courtesy Josh Hedges/Zuffa)
Former Bantamweight Champion Miguel Torres is on a mission to get what he considers “his belt” back. After going five years and 17 fights without a loss, Torres lost his belt to Brian Bowles at WEC 42 in August of ’09. At WEC 47, he begins a new phase of his career and faces a new challenge – coming back after a loss. Each week leading up to his March 6 match with Joseph Benavidez, Miguel will share his training and life stories with you here on Heavy.com.
As everyone probably heard, I changed my training camp for this fight with Joseph Benavidez. Although my team back home in Indiana and Chicago are great and dedicated, it was time for a change. My guys have always done the best they can, but I was running my own camps and workouts. At times it could lead to me usually overworking my body and not focusing on correcting my mistakes.
Getting back to my roots, I have searched for mentors that could not just help me to defeat a particular opponent, but to develop my skills to defeat any opponent. I spent a month in Las Vegas working with Robert Drysdale. It was a great experience and I got to train with two other black belts in Marcello “Lapella” Mafra and OTM’s Scott Bierri.
I left Vegas and got back home to Chicago thinking I was going to go up to Boston and train with Mark Dellagrotte, but sometimes things come up. He is still helping me with my gameplan and we’ll work together in the future. Luckily I know a Jersey Shore reject in “The Prince of Prelims” Kurt Pellegrino. Ill be there with him and his guys for 3 and a half weeks. He has 3 guys that are the same size as Joe B and have the same backgrounds as accomplished wrestlers that learned striking after.
I feel really good. I’ve been doing tons of conditioning, working on my wrestling, and a lot on my boxing. I’ve gone to a couple of different boxing gyms to get some training. Working on a good gameplan. I’ve been surrounding myself with some good people and I think it’s gonna help me out a lot. I’m working a lot on being elusive. Moving around, picking my shots, working on my timing. I’ve been watching a lot of Machida’s, Shogun’s , Anderson Silva’s fights. Studying lots of guys that I should be trying to emulate.
I actually caught some of the Superbowl this year. I was asleep for the first half, and woke up to see the onside kick to start the second half. I watched like eight or ten drives and then I went back to sleep. Trained all morning so needed some rest. It was the most football I’ve watched in the last year. It was exciting?
Right now, I find myself in Columbus, Ohio doing promo stuff for the fights on March 6. Doing all kinds of interviews with television stations, magazines, and internet sites. They had me go to a hockey game the other night. My first hockey game I’ve ever been to. A Mexican dude at a hockey game! It’s like a taco dinner at Hanukkah.
I’ll end this by saying Chael Sonnen is a beast. I’ll go on record as saying he’s a threat. Props to Ecko MMA for paying me to look good. Also a shout out to Robin Offner and Bad Boy for hooking me up with his house and car for the month so I could train in Vegas. Robin your unwavering support and freindship means a lot.
In the past 2 months I’ve learned who my true friends are. Never count you chickens before they have hatched and you can find sunshine anywhere – if you carry a flashlight. Oh, and a gun is worthless if you don’t have any bullets or the balls to pull the trigger! Peace.
Follow Miguel on Twitter @MiguelTorresMMA