Torres-Bowles, WEC 42 August 9th

In fairness I thought he was right about the Curran fight. I thought dude won the second and third rounds from his back. Close fight nonetheless.

 

Really? I know people see different things in fights and it's fairly subjective, but I thought Mizugaki won the first two rounds but lost the third. I think he did well to survive that triangle.

Nevertheless, Mir was very biased in the fight imo.

 

Absolutely heartbroken, sucks to see my favorite of what was the absolute top tier pfp lose after his long run.

It looks like he got a little too confident in his ability to do everything. Instead of trying to just recover after that shot, he went straight into the armbar, and that is what got him KO'd.

I think Dominic Cruz looks like he will beat Bowles, but I just underestimated Bowles in this fight, so who knows.

Hopefully Torres gets a good training camp for his next fight and works on his game plan a little more specifically rather than just going with the fight. Maybe not be so willing to stand and box with everybody; he can usually do it, but Bowles showed why it isn't always a good idea.

Torres has talked about not shooting for takedowns; I think its time he changed that policy.

Even after getting hit solidly once towards the start of the fight, and showing that he was far better than Bowles on the ground, even on bottom, he didn't even think about shooting or clinching for a takedown. I hate to say it becasue Torres has proven that he has great striking in other fights against very hard hitting guys who made their name as strikers, but he needs to start taking guys down, its just a complete waste of his talent not to.

 

He absolutely needs to follow GSP's plan. Not just the mental idea of it, but the implementation of the gameplan. Take far less risks with the striking, and get either to a dominant striking situation, or more realistically get the fight to the ground, where he is better than everybody.

Rather than just going out there and fighting wherever the opponent wants, he needs to dictate it right away. He did a good job of it against Mizugaki, pressing him against the cage, but in other fights he has just been willing to do whatever the opponent wants because he is generally good enough to.

 

Also I think Torres needs to stick with his trainers in Chicago, or bring somebody in; the idea of him training with Dellagrotte, who is a great coach mind you, for just a week or two rather than continuing his previous coaching probably had a lot to do with him looking worse in the stand up department.

Dellagrotte is a great coach, but he is somebody who needs time to work with guys, you don't just train with one guy forever and then suddenly start training for the first time with a totally different style trainer a week before the fight and try to change what has gotten you where you are.

That is all well and good in between fights, or maybe even at the start of a camp, but not the week before. Maybe Dellagrotte can improve his standup, but tinkering the week before the fight probably hurt him.

 

Torres is just not as great as everybody thought he was. Hes definitely good, hes definitely exciting to watch but he's got a ton of flaws on the feet. I said before on this board, hes the most beatable of all the top p4p guys.

I rewatched the fight, and Bowles actually looked better than I thought and Torres looked even worse than I thought. Torres really didnt do anything the whole fight. Bowles dropped Torres twice, took him down.

 

You are definitely underrating Bowles' striking he got the better of the stand up with Ribeiro, who was a Brazilian Olympic program boxer at 16, multiple time state champ, as well as having a very solid thai boxing record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3TZVzZc0wQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfmgLIiDkvY

Bowles can defiantly strike.