When Desmond Torres (5-1) and Steve Ramirez (6-3) meet at Bellator 214, each flyweight prospect will have a chance to take the next step of their young careers.
Torres enters the contest on a three-fight winning streak across KOTC and CXF. Ramirez has a pair of wins on Bellator undercards and is the former CXF flyweight champion; he defeated Mike Hansen for the title before losing it to George Garcia. Ramirez has finished all of his wins while Torres has ended three of his five victories.
“Bellator put together two finishers so it should be a good fight,” Torres told MMASucka. “[Ramirez] has a good ground game, a good stand-up game. He has standing KO finishes as well as submission finishes, so it should be a very exciting match-up.”
Ramirez has one submission each via rear naked choke, toe hold and leg lock. Torres has his own submissions via triangle choke and kimura. Based on their early submission finishes, fans in attendance would appear to be in for some fun if the fight hits the ground, though both men possess stand-up games, too.
“He’s won against some pretty good guys that are local champions, but I’ve been doing this for awhile,” Torres said. “I bring a more well-rounded game than a lot of his other opponents. I also believe he’ll be my most well-rounded opponent that I’ll fight to this date. He has good stand-up and a good Jiu-Jitsu game. I’ll be ready for him and I hope he’s preparing for me.”
Move to Team Oyama
In June 2017, two months after Torres’ professional debut, he packed his bags and moved from Virginia to California in order to get more out of his MMA training. To do so, he joined Team Oyama.
“Going to other camps in Virginia, it was hard finding a new team,” Torres explained. “MMA was still new in general and not much came out of there in MMA.
“[Team Oyama head coach] Colin [Oyama] was in the sport for awhile, he had multiple world champions. He spotted a lot of holes in my game. I’ve definitely improved a lot. A lot more motion, a lot more movement. I feel confident in my overall game and that’s just because of how much I’ve improved since I’ve been there.”
Torres’ Future
Torres said that whether he goes forward as a flyweight or bantamweight is up to whatever promotion he signs with. If it’s the UFC or Bellator, he’d fight at bantamweight, due to the former likely ending its flyweight division in the near future and the latter not having created a serious 125 lb. division yet. However, he would consider continuing as a flyweight if he were to sign with an organization like ONE Championship, RIZIN, Brave CF or Golden Boy MMA. One thing’s for certain, Torres doesn’t put a ton of stock into weight classes.
“I fought at bantamweight before and I feel better at bantamweight,” he said. “One thing that’s good about me going down to flyweight is that it keeps me dedicated and it keeps me disciplined. To be honest, I’m one of the kind of guys who doesn’t look at weight classes. If someone wanted me to move up to featherweight, I wouldn’t be shy of it.”
Bellator 214 goes down on January 26 live from The Forum in Los Angeles, and is available to watch on Paramount Network.
