Torres in a War with Mizugaki
Miguel Torres can fight his fight. And he can fight your fight.
There’s a reason Takeya Mizugaki is ranked as one of the top-five Bantamweights in MMA. He made the fight a war and took Torres to the limit.
“I have a lot of respect for him and nobody’s ever taken me that far in my career yet,” Torres said of Mizugaki.
Torres demonstrated once again on Sunday night that he has the goods – and the heart – to take on anyone in the cage.
Takeya Mizugaki came in to Sunday’s fight at the UIC Center in Chicago with a game plan. He stuck to that game plan and actually made it look like a winning strategy for good chunks of the bout.
Before the bout commentator Frank Mir had it right.
I don’t think he’s going to do as well on the ground as he could on his feet,” Mir said of Mizugaki. Mizugaki knew it, and he fought his fight.
Mizugaki took what looked like a very sensible strategy into the ring in the main event Sunday, and for awhile, it made for uncomfortable work for the versatile Torres. Forcing the action and making sure the bout was more about striking than MMA action, Mizugaki tried to pick Torres apart from the outside. He completely avoided any opportunity to take Torres to the ground and backed out every time Torres went down. Looking back on the action, that may have been a mistake as Mizugaki’s accurate striking put Torres on the mat on a number of occasions – more often from slips than striking – but Torres did go down.
Midway through the third round, Mizugaki’s striking opened a fairly serious vertical cut above Torres’ right eye which caused a stoppage. It looked like the damage may been done from a head butt.
Torres showed excellent defense and head movement. What’s most impressive about Torres is the variety of his offensive skills and the pace at which he fights. As his opponent wears down, Torres seems to ratchet up the pace. He just seems to have the ability to sense the moments in a fight when taking the initiative will break down his opponent, and he acts in a split second to take those openings.
But in the end, it came down to two things you can’t teach a fighter – heart and cunning on the big stage.
Miguel Angel Torres has them both. He just wouldn’t let Mizugaki win on his home turf and he defended it. End of story.
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