As everyone argues over the battle of BW GOAT between TJ and Cruz, let us remember Miguel Torres

[ExitLUPin]

He got robbed against Demetrious and we got robbed of Cruz/Torres

He is #4 BW GOAT. He was a very skilled and complete all-around fighter in his purime but he fought a lot of shit competition. Still deserves to be on the p4p lists at the time IMO. His fights with Mizugaki and Maeda were 2 of the best BW fights ever too

Dom/TJ
Barao
Miguel
Faber/Bowles

 

[MMA Maine-iac]

Torres and Condit were the reasons I really enjoyed the WEC. I was sad to see him fall off the face of the earth.

 

[Halifax]

He should have been 3-1 in the UFC. The decision was wrong.

Good on him. Doesn't change the fact that a lot of the guys he fought had records nearly exclusively in Ironheart challenge, Midwest Absolute challenge and the courage fighting championships.

We had several threads in the past few days asking if WEC counts just as much as the UFC with guys trying to say Torres is ahead of TJ on the GOAT list. My response was:

Not entirely.

A lot of great fighters in the UFC could have cut weight to fight more guys their size, but the pay was not the same. A lot of top fighters in the WEC. Ranked guys, were ranked top 5 in the world with records against nobodies in the Midwest Absolute challenge and the courage fighting championships.

Someone was trying to make a stupid argument that Miguel Torres was a greater All time Bantamweight than TJ Dillashaw just yesterday because of his record of fighting ranked guys from the minor leagues who were ranked higher than guys TJ faced.

Miguel Torres WEC record is 6-2, which is good, but not great. His wins in WEC come against :

Chase Weebe, who was 2-2 in WEC. now you can praise up his 11-2 MMA record before this stating "He is ranked" but he was ranked against nobodies in the Midwest Absolute challenge and the courage fighting championships. Against men in a Men's league, he won a few and was crushed

Yoshiro Maeda? Again, good in leagues like Pancrace(No closed fists) and DEEP, but in both call up's to the big leagues of Pride Bushido? He lost both 0-2 in Pride. In WEC? He won 1 and lost 2. In dream? He lost 5 and won 2.

Manny Tapia? Good against Amateurs in KOTC. In WEC? 2 wins, 3 losses.

Takeya Mizugaki? I consider him a good fighter. Gatekeeper level, but can't hang with the big boys.

Charlie Valencia? his record was 12-5 before Torres and he was never more than a gatekeeper.

Jeff Bedard? A can crusher from the minor leagues.

He lost to Brian Bowles a UFC level gatekeeper. And Benavidez, who is a terrific fighter more on the level of what TJ faces regularly.

TJ had defeated better competition, not can crushers.

Rocky Marciano went 49-0 in boxing at heavyweight but is not considered in the same class as other heavyweights? Why? because his competition stank. So did Torres'

 

[Kid Killashaw]

Good analyst with John Anik back in the 'MMA insider' days

 

[DooHoChoi]

The post fight vids after the Micheal Mcdonald fight where he couldnt remember what weight division he'd just fought where hard to watch

 

[Bubblun]

The post fight vids after the Micheal Mcdonald fight where he couldnt remember what weight division he'd just fought where hard to watch

Yeah, I remember that Jerry Rips guy that used to upload weird cageside and backstage videos, they were disrespectful, but funny and interesting at the same time.
Torres didn't even had an idea where and when he was, scary.

 

[Codpiece]

Good on him. Doesn't change the fact that a lot of the guys he fought had records nearly exclusively in Ironheart challenge, Midwest Absolute challenge and the courage fighting championships.

We had several threads in the past few days asking if WEC counts just as much as the UFC with guys trying to say Torres is ahead of TJ on the GOAT list. My response was:

Not entirely.

A lot of great fighters in the UFC could have cut weight to fight more guys their size, but the pay was not the same. A lot of top fighters in the WEC. Ranked guys, were ranked top 5 in the world with records against nobodies in the Midwest Absolute challenge and the courage fighting championships.

Someone was trying to make a stupid argument that Miguel Torres was a greater All time Bantamweight than TJ Dillashaw just yesterday because of his record of fighting ranked guys from the minor leagues who were ranked higher than guys TJ faced.

Miguel Torres WEC record is 6-2, which is good, but not great. His wins in WEC come against :

Chase Weebe, who was 2-2 in WEC. now you can praise up his 11-2 MMA record before this stating "He is ranked" but he was ranked against nobodies in the Midwest Absolute challenge and the courage fighting championships. Against men in a Men's league, he won a few and was crushed

Yoshiro Maeda? Again, good in leagues like Pancrace(No closed fists) and DEEP, but in both call up's to the big leagues of Pride Bushido? He lost both 0-2 in Pride. In WEC? He won 1 and lost 2. In dream? He lost 5 and won 2.

Manny Tapia? Good against Amateurs in KOTC. In WEC? 2 wins, 3 losses.

Takeya Mizugaki? I consider him a good fighter. Gatekeeper level, but can't hang with the big boys.

Charlie Valencia? his record was 12-5 before Torres and he was never more than a gatekeeper.

Jeff Bedard? A can crusher from the minor leagues.

He lost to Brian Bowles a UFC level gatekeeper. And Benavidez, who is a terrific fighter more on the level of what TJ faces regularly.

TJ had defeated better competition, not can crushers.

Rocky Marciano went 49-0 in boxing at heavyweight but is not considered in the same class as other heavyweights? Why? because his competition stank. So did Torres'

I like your post a lot. These points are similar ones to the points I have made in the past about quality of opposition (including when comparing the careers of Marciano and Joe Louis).

I wouldn’t argue that Torres is BW GOAT, but I would point out a couple of things:

1. A major point against Torres is that he lost when starting to face better opposition. His loss against MM is not good evidence of that because Torres should have won that fight. In addition to that:

2. Torres fought a lot. If he’s to be believed then he fought many more times than his record shows. They could all have been bums, but 60-70 fights alongside all the training he would have done is a stack of wear and tear.

The fact that his performance declined suddenly could be just as much a case of him wearing out as him not being all that good. My opinion is that we can not say for certain about how good Torres really was. But a deserved win over MM would show that he was at least pretty good.