"Oh – you want me to talk (crap) about Miguel?" Zahabi asks, a smile on his face. "I can do that!"
He's joking around to a degree, but his next statement sets the tone for this trainer/fighter relationship:
"I still think he's got a lot of potential left, and it's going to take some time to reach that," Zahabi said. "But I don't think he's anywhere near where he's going to be in the future."
I guess that could be taken as a compliment, albeit a backhanded one. Torres isn't even used to him being that nice though, apparently:
"He hasn't told me anything like that," Torres said Wednesday. "Everything he tells me is pretty much negative – and that I'm garbage – so I can get better. But I feel like I'm getting better every day. When I came here, I saw what I was lacking in my game. I knew how much more I could pick up and how much better I could become."
Torres used to describe that a fight against himself would be like "fighting an octopus in quicksand". Unfortunately, he was sorely lacking in a major aspect of MMA - wrestling. Miguel touches on it, but Zahabi gives a better description of where he's at now:
"It's definitely his wrestling – I'll admit to that. I have no problem – I like to say the truth," Zahabi said. "But I'll tell you one thing: He's working very hard on that, and he's not going to be easy to take down. He's going to be even more difficult to hold down, and it's going to be very hard to stop his submissions. So I'm confident for this fight."
Torres faces Demetrious Johnson at UFC 130, who was a late replacement for Brad Pickett. DJ brings a completely different style into the cage, and it's one that will test Miguel's new-found wrestling skills. It should be interesting to see how far Miguel's wrestling has come along, because Johnson won't be shy about testing it.