Albuquerque boxer Josh Torres is ready and eager for his return to the ring

You’ll rarely, if ever, see Albuquerque’s Josh Torres on the bicycle — boxing parlance for evasive movement — in the ring.

Though he’s a boxer and not a brawler, Torres is an aggressive fighter. Salt Lake City’s Christian Aguirre, his scheduled opponent on the Dec. 12 Legacy Promotions card at the Kiva Auditorium, won’t have to go looking for him that night.

Even so, that particular mode of transportation still applies.

In returning to the ring after an 18-month layoff, Torres said, “It’s like riding a bike. I’ve been doing this so long that it’s like second nature to me.”

Torres (22-7-2. 15 knockouts) last fought on June 8, 2024, when he defeated veteran Daniel Calzada by lopsided decision on a Teresa Tapia-promoted card at Isleta Casino & Resort. Since then, he’s had one fight fall through and sustained a lower-leg fracture that kept him out of the gym until recently.

The Aguirre fight is scheduled for six rounds and was made at the junior middleweight limit of 154 pounds, not the 147-pound welterweight limit at which Torres has campaigned almost exclusively throughout his 17-year pro career.

“Just to give me a little bit of cushion, to have a safety net (after the injury),” he said. “The way it turned out, I ended up healing up well, running and doing all the cardio that I used to.

“I probably could have done it at 47, but at the time I just wasn’t sure.”

Back with Legacy

Between September 2016 and November 2019, Torres fought seven times on cards staged by Legacy Promotions, an Albuquerque concern headed by Aaron Perez.

Earlier, Torres had fought several times on cards promoted by Teresa Tapia, whose late husband, five-time world champion Johnny Tapia, had been Torres’ trainer before his death.

In early 2020, Teresa Tapia came to Torres with an offer he didn’t feel he could refuse. The Impact Network, a Detroit-based Christian TV network, was getting into the boxing business and had big plans.

Torres informed Legacy’s Aaron Perez that he was signing with this new promotion and wouldn’t be available to Legacy while under contract to another entity.

In a phone interview earlier this week, Perez said he was disappointed at the time — “We were establishing him, getting him going” — but harbored no hard feelings.

The Impact Network project never panned out, apparently a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic. Torres has fought six times since his last appearance with Legacy, five of those on Tapia-promoted cards.

But when Perez heard that Torres was looking to get back in the ring after his injury, the two men came to an agreement.

Since Torres agreed to fight on Friday’s Legacy card, Teresa Tapia has announced plans to promote a show in Albuquerque on Jan. 9.

Torres said he couldn’t commit to fighting on Tapia’s card until after Friday’s Legacy show, since the two cards are less than a month apart.

But, he said, “I told Aaron that Teresa reached out to me and she was real cool, ‘Like, I know you’ve got your fight in December, but we would love to have you in January if you want to be on.’

“I told her (yes), as long as it didn’t affect anything that Legacy has coming up. … I didn’t want Legacy to feel like I was using them for this fight. I would like to continue working with them in the future, if I can.”

The matchup

Perez initially sought to match Torres with Phoenix boxer Jose Marruffo, whom Torres has fought twice — fighting to a draw in 2014 and losing by majority decision on a Legacy card in 2016.

The Marruffo rematch isn’t happening, since Torres wasn’t sure he could make the 147-pound welterweight limit at which Marruffo competes.

He hopes that bout can happen in the future.

“That’s a fight I know I can win,” he said, “and it would mean a lot to me.”

In Aguirre (9-12, four KOs), who has been campaigning recently as a middleweight (160 pounds), Torres will be facing a journeyman who’s lost nine of his last 10 bouts — but against opponents with a cumulative record of 54-2-1.

Torre saw Aguirre in person when he cornered for Albuquerque’s Sharahya Moreu in San Antonio, Texas in March 2024.

Aguirre lost by unanimous decision that night to Justin Figueroa, who was 7-0 at the time.

“He took everything Figueroa hit him with and he kept coming,” Torres said. “He’s a live dog, and me being out of the ring as long as I have, I can’t overlook anybody.”

TROUT WINS: In Hollywood, Florida, Las Cruces’ Austin Trout defeated Luis Palomino by third-round TKO in the main event of a BKFC (bare knuckle) card.

The fight was a semifinal in a BKFC tournament, staged to determine the organization’s lightweight champion. Trout (5-0 BKFC) advances to a title fight, date to be scheduled, against Franco Tenaglia.

The Trout-Palomino fight was a rematch of a BKFC welterweight title fight, won by Trout via unanimous decision, in February 2024.