Thursday, December 18, 2008

Desolating Angel

If you've been following these blogs, you know that I am a fan of mixed martial arts. I have trained in Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, American Boxing and Judo, but modern mixed martial arts is more beautiful and practical than anything I had seen before I watched my first match.



A fighter who caught my eye early on was Miquel Angel Torres. For months now he has been my favorite fighter and after seeing the way he tore apart Manny Tapia, I now feel he is in contention for best-pound-for-pound fighter along with Anderson Silva.



Uriah Faber breathing down their collective neck.



Here is the word on Torres' recent defeat of Manny Tapia:

As the second round started Tapia landed a big right hand that Super Torres apparently didn’t feel. Unfazed by the “Mangler’s” power shot, Torres connected with a beautiful spinning back fist just before a clean right hand drops Tapia to the canvas.

The Hard Rock erupted into chants of, “Torres, Torres.”

Tapia leaped quickly to his feet but the challenger was hurt and a methodical Miguel Torres capitalized with combo that again sent Tapia crashing to the floor, where Miguel assaulted Tapia with a flurry of strong right hands and elbows. At 3:04 into the second round Josh Rosenthal stepped in to reveal a beaten and bloodied Manny Tapia.

“I wanted to fight a little bit calm this time,” Torres said in the post fight interview. “Last time I fought, I got kind of emotional and got kind of crazy. If I calm myself down, I fight like this pretty much all the time. I knew Manny was gonna come with big punches. I wanted to keep my range, use my jab to measure him up and then throw a couple of feints and a big right hand.”

Miguel Torres is in a class of his own. The worst thing about that is he knows it.
That’s not a bad thing for the sport, it’s not a bad thing for writers or fans and it damn sure isn’t a bad thing for the WEC. It’s a bad thing for Brian Bowels, it’s bad for Will Ribeiro and Joey Benavidez, hell it’s bad for any mixed martial artist that weighs 135 pounds.

If the catchweight bout between Miguel Torres and Urijah Faber ever happens I think it’ll be bad for him too. The performance Miguel put on Wednesday night was special. Special because his BJJ is special, it’s like his pistol and he can pull the trigger whenever he wants to.

The special thing is, Miguel never pulled the trigger.


Read more.

Watch the first and second round here. Notice Torres' incredible left jab as well as his use of unorthodox strikes like a Tae Kwon Do style rolling ax kick and a spinning back fist that spells the beginning of the end for Tapia.






Now crank up the sound and check out these new tunes!


Joe%20NolanQuantcast

Explore this Santa's Workshop and listen to - and purchase - my new CD at your favorite online outlet. Also click the VIDEO button to watch the short film REvolution featuring yours truly on the soundtrack.

Enjoy!

Be gentle in your sleepy hands on this world.
Be a killer in Heaven.

Love,
Joe Nolan

Check out my profile at Reverb Nation to see my updated press and bio.

Listen to my earlier releases, and enjoy free downloads here!

Support this site! Buy Joe's Music! ...

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,