CHICAGO | It took two and a half months, but Miguel Torres finally got to toe the rubber for the Chicago White Sox.

And he couldn't have picked a better day to do it, throwing out a ceremonial first pitch before Mark Buehrle threw the second perfect game in team history.

Although Torres only stayed through the sixth inning, he said after the game that he was Buehrle's good luck charm and left a little something on the mound for him before the game.

"I left a cup of lions blood and some cobra venom for him to throw a no-hitter," Torres said after the game. "That's how I roll. I have that effect on people."

Mother Nature got in Torres' way on May 6, the date he was originally scheduled to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at U.S. Cellular Field. On Thursday, Torres didn't have to worry about the weather or another fighter standing across the cage from him. He just had to worry about the distance from the mound to the plate.

An overly generous umpire would have called Torres' pitch a strike. But perhaps the East Chicago native took something off it, so to speak.

"It went good," Torres said minutes after walking off the field before the Sox's game with the Tampa Bay Rays. "I'd call it a strike, but the guy didn't catch the ball, man. It made it to the plate. I did put a little bit of cut on it -- I didn't plan that, it just happened. I only wanted to make it to the plate, and I made it to the plate. Now it's time to go beat people up at the gym."

Torres is the bantamweight champion for World Extreme Cagefighting and is widely considered to be one of the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artists in the world. He is 37-1 -- with another 12 victories in unsanctioned fights, by his count -- and hasn't lost a fight since November 2003 at an Ironheart Crown event at the Hammond Civic Center, his first fight back following knee surgery.

He next bout puts his title on the line Aug. 9 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas against unbeaten Brian Bowles as the headliner of WEC 42.

His last title defense came in April at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, a five-round slugfest against Japanese striker Takeya Mizugaki. Torres said prior to that fight he planned to "stand and bang" with Mizugaki, and he kept his promise. It was the first time he had a fight go beyond the third round. And it was the first time media exposure for his fights had ramped up to levels he hadn't seen before. Now, just 17 days ahead of his next fight, Torres said that added exposure that comes with being a poster boy for what most consider the No. 2 MMA promotion in the world behind the UFC (both are owned by Zuffa LLC) is something he's accustomed to, whether he likes it or not.

"I got used to the media," Torres said. "It's not so bad anymore. I'm training like usual and when I do travel, I try to make it so I'm with a Mark DellaGrotte or a Kenny Florian, somebody that's gonna help me train to elevate my game. I think it's something I'm gonna have to get used to, because it's only gonna get worse from here. I've looked at different athletes at the top of their game, and it only gets worse from here -- I've made amends with that."

Against Bowles (7-0), Torres faces a more well-rounded fighter than Mizugaki.

He said he plans to go to Las Vegas a week ahead of the fight along with a camp of local training partners. And when he arrives, he'll also again call on some Vegas-based MMA experts to get him ready.

"I'm bringing eight of my own training partners, and then I'll have Frank Mir's gym and I'm probably gonna train at Wanderlei (Silva's gym) because it's close to my hotel," Torres said. "And then I'll be training a lot with Robert Drysdale working on some sneaky jiu-jitsu moves."

Drysdale is one of the world's best jiu-jitsu practitioners, but Torres said "sneaky jiu-jitsu" is not necessarily his gameplan against Bowles.

"I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna knock him out," Torres said. "He's never been hit before. The guys that he's fought and knocked out never had any stand-up ability. They didn't have a strong chin. They didn't have punching power, and they didn't have staying power. And they were intimidated by Brian Bowles when he came forward. When someone comes forward on me, I don't go anywhere -- I take it, and I give it back. I think Brian thinks he's stronger than me, and he might hit harder than me but I hit more often and I'm not going to go away. And I do hit harder as the fight goes on." WEC 42: Torres vs. Bowles will air live on the Versus cable network on Aug. 9 at 8 p.m. Central time.

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