When a fighter reaches the highest levels of success in mixed martial arts, they must look down on the division they have championed to see what challenges await them. If they can stay well-prepared, continue to hone their craft, and improve as a fighter, they can sit atop a division for years. In recent years many of the sports’ elite fighters have been able to keep a strong hold on their titles; Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, and Jon Jones have forty successful title fights between them. However, footing at the top isn’t as sound as it has been in the past for champions in this sport, and the fall back down can be an ugly sight to observe. In the case of bantamweight fighter and former WEC champion Miguel Torres, the fall from grace has been especially tough to watch. Torres was once considered the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, but today he isn’t even considered a top fifty fighter at bantamweight. Torres has worked hard to make a comeback, but to this point he has been unsuccessful, and over Halloween weekend he suffered yet another defeat.
On Halloween night in Tampa, Florida, Torres suffered a devastating knockout loss to Bellator standout Desmond Green that has left many asking if it is time for Torres to hang it up. A bad knockout loss is something that can happen to any fighter but it seems that in the case of Torres his losses by knockout have looked exponentially worse. It was 2009 when Torres suffered his first loss via knockout and it was a brutal one that saw him go completely limp, taking several unanswered shots to the head before the referee could stop the fight. This loss just so happened to be the first loss for Torres in over six years and many expected him to recover from the loss and reclaim his title. Over the next three years, he would fail to maintain the consistency that made him so great, going just 3-3 for the remainder of his time with the WEC and UFC. The last bout Torres would have in the UFC ended with another knockout. This time the series of punches that landed left his body stiff and twitching on the canvas. These knockouts have all seemed especially brutal and it would be a shame to see him take more punishment than he already has.
Torres has proven one thing over the last five years, and that is that he has become an inconsistent fighter and his moments on the larger stages have been lackluster at best. In fights with major promotions (UFC, WEC, WSOF) since suffering his first WEC loss, he has gone 3-6. In contrast, in fights with lower level promotions, he has gone 3-1. Torres has trained with many of the best coaches in the world and his elite level Jiu-Jitsu and excellent boxing fundamentals are proof of that. But it seems that his time as a dominant fighter and aggressive finisher are behind him. Once feared for his submission skills, he has just two submission wins to his credit over his last fifteen fights.
If this last fight is the one that causes him to walk away from the sport I don’t think anyone will blame him. A loss that ends with the potential of long-term brain damage is frightening for both fighters and spectators. The real question will be, has Torres waited too long? Will the legacy he built all those years ago be the one that people remember? Hopefully Torres will not be judged by the way he finishes his career but by the way he started it; fighting as a teenager against full-grown men, searching aggressively for submissions to end fights, and taking on multiple fighters in a night. Will this be the end of the road for Torres? Maybe. But if he chooses to comeback he will have to do something very hard; he will have to look for consistency in a sport that doesn’t always make it easy to find.
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