You read more about his post ring career as an author than as a former light heavyweight champion ... how good was he ? What were his strengths and weaknesses and how high do you rate him ?
A very good light heavyweight. Beating Willie Pastrano was no mean feat. Jose's book on Ali was great.
Jose didn't just beat Pastrano. That was an unholy beating and a virtuoso performance. Torres fit the mold of the Puerto Rican fighter: gutsy, a fluid combination puncher, good fundamental, great counterpuncher, etc. That said his upset losses to Flores and Tiger do really hurt his historical standing.
I think he was solid all-around boxer. Not exceptional in any category, but had no glaring weaknesses either. You could make the argument that he was a little under-sized at light heavyweight but in fact it was the middleweight Dick Tiger who eventually dethroned him. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv0nXiS5wO4[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmgGlBEddio[/ame] 2:00 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoG4-k6DEj0[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5CyqzA7AH0[/ame]
its strange, i started getting interested in boxing because jose torres was on a tyson documentary, then i googled him , and didn't have a lot of information. and he wasn't in the consciousness either so i had to start threads...and i haven't left 6 years later. anyways great combination of ablity, good skills speed and footwork and a solid defence, sort of a virgil hill type just with much more ability with the combinations. he just happend to topple an old pastrano and a reletivly young phenom in tiger. so he gets treated as a steppingstone/paper champion when he seems to be alot more than that
Not only his style, but perhaps also his strengths and weaknesses as well. Like Cotto, Torres excelled against opponents who weren't big punchers. Hence, he had very impressive wins over Pastrano and Olson, and other credible wins over the likes of Don Fullmer and Jose Gonzalez - but none of those opponents were considered punchers. The first time he stepped it up against a truly big puncher, this is what happened: [yt]DaKKcUBCvZs[/yt] After that, I felt Cus D'Amato carefully maneuvered Torres away from big punchers. Dick Tiger was also among the more solid-hitting opponents Torres fought in his career, and Torres was 0-2 against him. Charley Green was basically a journeyman with a punch, and he had Torres down and in serious trouble before Torres rallied to KO him.