Fighting for a Future
May 28, 2008
Wayne Gretzky once said a great hockey player skates to where the
puck is going to be, not to where it is.
WEC 135-pound champion Miguel Torres (Pictures) can attest to such forward thinking.
Growing up, his friends were local wrestlers who moonlighted as
gangsters and liked to test Torres' martial arts background. When
his taekwondo failed him, he knew something had to be done. And
when his friends started smoking and drinking, he ditched them,
too, for the same reason: He could see where he wanted to be one
day.
Torres had always been smaller than the opposition, making jiu-jitsu a natural choice for him. His mentor, Carlson Gracie, who followed Torres' career in local Chicago circuits before training him, saw championship intangibles early.
Beef up, fight at lightweight and go to the UFC were the suggestions from his East Chicago, Ind., neighbors. Some had the nerve to offer him steroids and HGH. With only three weight classes on his local circuit (lightweight at 165, middleweight at 195 and heavyweight at anything above), the lanky fighter -- then 125 pounds -- lied to promoters about his weight. He said he was 130.
"I always knew I'd have my shot," Torres explains. "I just had to be patient and wait for my weight class to come up."
The wait was rough. Other fighters would lie, too, saying they were 150 rather than 175. No real questions asked, no medicals taken. The choices were limited: fight for pay in a manic setting, stick to the gym and remain untested or waste away in the street.
The son of a steel mill crane operator, Torres had wanted to fight for as long as he could remember. He paid for whatever martial arts lessons he could get by collecting cans, landscaping and selling newspaper subscriptions.
At the same time, his fighting life remained separate from his family life. His father, who admired the boxers he watched with his son like Julio Cesar Chavez and Salvador Sanchez, didn't want him to be a fighter. In fact, Torres took his first fight while his father was sick in the hospital. With the patriarch still bedridden, he heard of his son's new career decision.
Torres justified it by paying his Purdue University tuition with his winnings. The elder reluctantly accepted. But when Miguel graduated, he continued to fight. His family didn't understand why he had turned down a well-paying job at Kodak selling equipment to hospitals.
It was not rebellion or rejection of their values. It was their hard work, which they had passed on to him, placed in an unusual context. It was Torres skating to where the puck would be years later.
Too poor to afford Tapout shorts, Torres was a hard sell to the local crowd -- including his mother. He bought Under Armour shorts at K-Mart that were too long for him, then downsized the mid-thigh shorts with scissors. When he entered the ring, they rode up on him "like little boy underwear." He didn't know it at the time, but the spotlights made them transparent, revealing his jockstrap. At 5-foot-9 and weighing less than most high school kids, he was hardly the paragon of intimidation.
When Torres' opponent -- who stood 6-foot-2 and had nearly a 50-pound weight advantage at 175 pounds -- entered the fighting arena, mother Torres began yelling, "Stop the fight! Stop the fight!"
She had to be taken upstairs by friends who literally held her down. Miguel was going to get hurt, she thought. Instead, he broke his opponent's jaw.
"Every show, [MMA] would grow," Torres says of his climb alongside the sport's. "I never went to a show where there were less people from before. It would go from 100 to 200. I always knew it had the potential."
Now on national TV, Torres is still adjusting from the blackout days. He has received such overwhelming support in his neighborhood and from his family that he has trouble being recognized in the streets. Fans approach while he's at dinner with his wife. Torres takes the time to talk to them and to the 80-year-old woman who once asked about his next fight.
Despite juggling his family, his gym and his newfound celebrity, he remains focused.
"Nothing is gonna stop me," he says. "I get it into my mind. I always carry it in my heart when I'm walking out there that I'm fighting for Mexican-Americans and my family."
He'll look to use that inspiration when he defends his WEC title Sunday against Yoshiro Maeda (Pictures). The Japanese fighter is a dangerous, unorthodox striker, but that doesn't matter to Torres. This is a fight, he says, "not a point-style karate match."
Originally Torres was slated to face Manny Tapia (Pictures), who dropped out due to a knee injury. He still wants that fight and many others.
"I want to fight all the best guys there are at 135," Torres says. "I want to make a name for myself at that weight class. I want to establish something to where in 10 years, when the bantamweight class is huge, that they bring me up as one of the first fighters in the sport … in that weight class."
The 27-year-old takes his role as a representative of the lighter weight divisions seriously. Since his submission win over Chase Beebe (Pictures) in February to become the WEC champion, he has trained with Kurt Pellegrino (Pictures) to improve his wrestling and stay champion. Torres, 33-1, doesn't plan on relinquishing his title anytime soon.
"It's an honor to be able to put this much time in, and I'm just starting to see the rewards of it now," Torres says of his 10-year career. "My dad always told me if you're going to do something, you got to do it all the way. You can't half ass anything."
And Torres hasn't done anything halfheartedly. That is why he is unanimously considered the best in the world at his weight. Moreover, he is now ranked as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters even though both of his prominent victories in the WEC were given limited attention.
"I have so much game that I haven't shown yet, so much heart and fight in me that they haven't seen yet," Torres says.
He always looked to the future. That is how he got to where he is today, but his accomplishments are not enough. The future has stayed on his mind: the next training session, the next fight, the next step up.
"So eventually I want to be one of the top three in the world pound-for-pound," he says. "I don't want to be number 10. I want to be one of the top three -- you'll see that when I fight more."
WEC 135-pound champion Miguel Torres (Pictures) can attest to such forward thinking.
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Torres had always been smaller than the opposition, making jiu-jitsu a natural choice for him. His mentor, Carlson Gracie, who followed Torres' career in local Chicago circuits before training him, saw championship intangibles early.
"When I met Carlson," Torres says, "that kind of boosted my
confidence to push forward and stay where I was at as far as
weight-wise and not try to put weight on."
Beef up, fight at lightweight and go to the UFC were the suggestions from his East Chicago, Ind., neighbors. Some had the nerve to offer him steroids and HGH. With only three weight classes on his local circuit (lightweight at 165, middleweight at 195 and heavyweight at anything above), the lanky fighter -- then 125 pounds -- lied to promoters about his weight. He said he was 130.
"I always knew I'd have my shot," Torres explains. "I just had to be patient and wait for my weight class to come up."
The wait was rough. Other fighters would lie, too, saying they were 150 rather than 175. No real questions asked, no medicals taken. The choices were limited: fight for pay in a manic setting, stick to the gym and remain untested or waste away in the street.
The son of a steel mill crane operator, Torres had wanted to fight for as long as he could remember. He paid for whatever martial arts lessons he could get by collecting cans, landscaping and selling newspaper subscriptions.
At the same time, his fighting life remained separate from his family life. His father, who admired the boxers he watched with his son like Julio Cesar Chavez and Salvador Sanchez, didn't want him to be a fighter. In fact, Torres took his first fight while his father was sick in the hospital. With the patriarch still bedridden, he heard of his son's new career decision.
Torres justified it by paying his Purdue University tuition with his winnings. The elder reluctantly accepted. But when Miguel graduated, he continued to fight. His family didn't understand why he had turned down a well-paying job at Kodak selling equipment to hospitals.
It was not rebellion or rejection of their values. It was their hard work, which they had passed on to him, placed in an unusual context. It was Torres skating to where the puck would be years later.
Too poor to afford Tapout shorts, Torres was a hard sell to the local crowd -- including his mother. He bought Under Armour shorts at K-Mart that were too long for him, then downsized the mid-thigh shorts with scissors. When he entered the ring, they rode up on him "like little boy underwear." He didn't know it at the time, but the spotlights made them transparent, revealing his jockstrap. At 5-foot-9 and weighing less than most high school kids, he was hardly the paragon of intimidation.
When Torres' opponent -- who stood 6-foot-2 and had nearly a 50-pound weight advantage at 175 pounds -- entered the fighting arena, mother Torres began yelling, "Stop the fight! Stop the fight!"
She had to be taken upstairs by friends who literally held her down. Miguel was going to get hurt, she thought. Instead, he broke his opponent's jaw.
"Every show, [MMA] would grow," Torres says of his climb alongside the sport's. "I never went to a show where there were less people from before. It would go from 100 to 200. I always knew it had the potential."
Now on national TV, Torres is still adjusting from the blackout days. He has received such overwhelming support in his neighborhood and from his family that he has trouble being recognized in the streets. Fans approach while he's at dinner with his wife. Torres takes the time to talk to them and to the 80-year-old woman who once asked about his next fight.
Despite juggling his family, his gym and his newfound celebrity, he remains focused.
"Nothing is gonna stop me," he says. "I get it into my mind. I always carry it in my heart when I'm walking out there that I'm fighting for Mexican-Americans and my family."
He'll look to use that inspiration when he defends his WEC title Sunday against Yoshiro Maeda (Pictures). The Japanese fighter is a dangerous, unorthodox striker, but that doesn't matter to Torres. This is a fight, he says, "not a point-style karate match."
Originally Torres was slated to face Manny Tapia (Pictures), who dropped out due to a knee injury. He still wants that fight and many others.
"I want to fight all the best guys there are at 135," Torres says. "I want to make a name for myself at that weight class. I want to establish something to where in 10 years, when the bantamweight class is huge, that they bring me up as one of the first fighters in the sport … in that weight class."
The 27-year-old takes his role as a representative of the lighter weight divisions seriously. Since his submission win over Chase Beebe (Pictures) in February to become the WEC champion, he has trained with Kurt Pellegrino (Pictures) to improve his wrestling and stay champion. Torres, 33-1, doesn't plan on relinquishing his title anytime soon.
"It's an honor to be able to put this much time in, and I'm just starting to see the rewards of it now," Torres says of his 10-year career. "My dad always told me if you're going to do something, you got to do it all the way. You can't half ass anything."
And Torres hasn't done anything halfheartedly. That is why he is unanimously considered the best in the world at his weight. Moreover, he is now ranked as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters even though both of his prominent victories in the WEC were given limited attention.
"I have so much game that I haven't shown yet, so much heart and fight in me that they haven't seen yet," Torres says.
He always looked to the future. That is how he got to where he is today, but his accomplishments are not enough. The future has stayed on his mind: the next training session, the next fight, the next step up.
"So eventually I want to be one of the top three in the world pound-for-pound," he says. "I don't want to be number 10. I want to be one of the top three -- you'll see that when I fight more."
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