Benavidez On Torres: ‘Everything He’s Got Can Be Mine’

By Frank Curreri

An excruciating, month-long training camp at the Jersey Shore honed more than Miguel Torres’ fight game. The experience also apparently sharpened his tongue.

“I feel #$%ing great!” said the former WEC bantamweight champion, who has been training at Kurt Pellegrino’s gym in Belmar, New Jersey, five minutes or so from the sites where much of the MTV reality show “Jersey Shore” were filmed.

“Man, the only thing I do out here is train, eat and sleep. I’m so ready to just fight. I want to fight this dude so bad and just get out of here.”

That “dude” would be Joseph Benavidez, a Team Alpha Male standout who has won 11 of 12 pro bouts and especially raised eyebrows with triumphs over veteran Jeff Curran and grappling wizard Rani Yahya. For Benavidez, Torres represents “the biggest fight of my career,” and a victory on March 6 could amplify Benavidez’ name with fans and media – a transfer of power, so to speak. The former state champion wrestler (New Mexico) didn’t feel the least bit slighted recently when reporters posed plenty of questions to Torres during a media conference call, yet just a few queries for Benavidez. Neither does it bother Benavidez that many of the storylines for this fight seem to skip over him entirely, with many fixated on Torres getting back into title contention and potentially earning a crack at the winner of Saturday night’s title fight between Brian Bowles and Dominick Cruz.

“I don't really look at it too much as disrespect,” Benavidez said. “That's just the way things go when someone's done something like he has in the sport. People are going to be excited to see him come back and want to talk to him more, you know?

“I’ve got to pave my way, just like anyone else did, and get people excited about me fighting. He was a world champion so that's expected … It just motivates me, if anything, to know that everything that he's getting can be mine if I go out there and do my thing.”

The 5’5 Benavidez has bulked up for Saturday night’s fight in Columbus, Ohio (WEC 48, live on Versus, 7 p.m. PST and 10 p.m. EST) and is widely presumed to be the superior wrestler and quicker athlete. Torres is 4-inches taller but has the reach of a 6-footer, putting Benavidez at a significant disadvantage in that department. It will be interesting to see if Benavidez, who scored his first knock out over Rani Yahya in January, opts to stand for long periods of time with Torres, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who has 9 knockouts or TKO’s and 22 submissions.

“Everyone that I practice with or fight usually has a reach (advantage) on me, so that's just the way of life for me; just getting past someone's reach, you know that's my style of fighting,” Benavidez said. “Yes, he does have an extremely long reach. And the only thing I've really done different that I probably actually would have never done before, either, is that I went and sought out some boxers that were the same height and same reach. A few amateurs, a few pros, and just trying to go with as many tall guys as I can. That's the most I can do, is just try to get people in there to mimic him with their height. It worked out pretty good, and I'm feeling good against the tall people like that.”

Back in Jersey, Torres (37-2) has been training with short and stocky wrestlers and Pellegrino, a UFC lightweight whom he considers to be a heavier version of Benavidez. Following his first-round loss to Brian Bowles last August, by knockout, Torres took a sabbatical and rested his body. Then he made some sweeping changes to all aspects of his game. Since the death of his mentor, Carlson Gracie, in 2006, Torres had trained out of his own gym in East Chicago, Indiana, and essentially acted as his own head coach. The loss to Bowles was an education for the 10-year pro, who became a road warrior, traveling to Las Vegas for several weeks to train under six-time world jiu-jitsu champion Robert Drysdale. After that, Torres stopped home for a few days, then migrated to Pellegrino’s for the final month of two-a-days and a new emphasis on strength and conditioning circuits. He also did the unthinkable: the notorious junk food eater reformed his diet. Gone are the burritos, the tacos, the hamburgers and the fries. Now he refuels with chicken breast, broccoli, noodles and rice.

So while some observers indeed may be underestimating Benavidez, Torres most certainly is not. A crowd-pleaser at heart, Torres has talked of trying to better control his emotions inside of the cage, and the want to be more methodical and strategic. He believes those changes would make him less susceptible to being stopped with another big punch.

What this fight is missing is bad blood. There has been no trash talk leading up to the bout. Torres expects to have a large number of supporters making the drive from Indiana and Illinois to Columbus. One of those aficionados will be former boxing world champion Miguel Cotto, a friend who has offered Torres pointers on his boxing skills.

“What has pulled me through this training camp is my mental toughness,” Torres said. “I’m focused on what I’ve got to do.”