Brian Bowles

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Nothing lasts forever — even cold November rain, and the seemingly untouchable bantamweight championship run of Miguel Torres. No, Torres did not ruin Brian Bowles's boyish face at last night's WEC 42, as many (everybody?) assumed he would. Instead, Bowles nearly knocked the former champ's mullet off during a violent belt-taking that was reminiscent of Brown vs. Faber 1.

Torres was in trouble from the beginning of the match, as Bowles sent him to the canvas with a heavy right hand. After Bowles dropped some elbows from the top, Torres was able to kick Bowles off of him. Moments later, Torres launched forward with a barrage of punches that had Bowles on his heels, but Bowles fired off a sharp right hook that dropped Torres again, and started throwing down bombs until Torres was in dreamland. Brian Bowles — who picked up a $10,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for his shocking of the world — is the new WEC bantamweight champ. “No excuses,” Torres said after the fight. “Brian is going to be a good champion, but he’ll see that the responsibilities that go along with being the champion are not easy.”

(Props: MMA Mania)

The WEC's next title bout will go down August 9th in Las Vegas, with undisputed bantamweight ruler Miguel Torres (37-1 confirmed record, 5-0 WEC) making his fourth belt defense against exciting contender Brian Bowles (7-0, 4-0 WEC). Despite the large difference in experience, the above promo video does its best to convince you that Bowles is a serious threat. "If I have to pick anybody out there, if I was Miguel Torres's manager, who I would want to avoid, it would have been Brian Bowles," says WEC analyst Frank Mir, proving why he's paid to fight and do color commentary, not manage careers. "To beat me you have to kill me," Torres says. "To beat me, you gotta take my heart out of my chest, and stab me with a knife." Luckily, Bowles has been training with MMA legend Mola Ram.

WEC 42 will also feature a possible #1 bantamweight contender match between Joseph Benavidez and Dominick Cruz, and the return of Leonard Garcia against Jameel Massouh.

(Takeya Mizugaki vs. Daichi Fujiwara, 6/22/08. Fight starts at the 1:08 mark; Mizugaki's in the white trunks. Videos of two more Mizugaki wins are after the jump.)

MMA Weekly reports that the WEC's #1 bantamweight contender Brian Bowles has suffered an "undisclosed injury" [update: it was a back injury suffered during a training session at ATT] and has been forced to pull out of his title scrap with #4 P4P fighter Miguel Torres at WEC 40 (April 5th, Chicago). It's an incredibly tough break for the undefeated Bowles, but on the bright side, the WEC has managed to pull a very credible replacement directly out of their asses. Stepping in for Brian will be Takeya Mizugaki, an 11-2-2 veteran of Shooto and GCM Cage Force who's on a five-fight win streak, and who MMA Weekly currently ranks as the #6 bantamweight in the world. Mizugaki is expected to sign a five-fight contract with the WEC.

Speaking of which: WEC 39 is this Sunday in Corpus Christi, and will be broadcast live on Versus. The card will feature the featherweight title fight between Mike Brown and Leonard Garcia, Jose Aldo vs. Chris Mickle in a featherweight contender match, and lightweight bouts between Bart Palaszewski and Ricardo Lamas, and Rob McCullough vs. Marcus Hicks.

(Torres poses with victim Yoshiro Maeda after their epic battle last June. Photo courtesy of koolpaw.)

#1 bantamweight /#5 pound-for-pound fighter Miguel Torres will reportedly make his next title defense at WEC 40, which will be held April 5th in Chicago; the venue will be announced soon. Unsurprisingly, his opponent will be Brian Bowles (7-0, all wins by stoppage), who clinched his #1 contender status last month by choking out Will Ribeiro at WEC 37 — the same event where Torres retained his bantamweight strap by beating the tar out of Manny Tapia. Ferocious local support should be behind Torres, who lives and trains in East Chicago, Indiana, and made his name by competing in small shows in the area. WEC 40 will also feature another bantamweight match between undefeated Joseph Benavidez and Jeff Curran, who is dropping a weight class after taking consecutive losses at featherweight to Urijah Faber and Mike Brown. The winner of the Torres/Bowles fight will likely take on the winner of the Benavidez/Curran fight in a title scrap later this year.

Remember, WEC 38 goes down this Sunday, headlined by Varner/Cerrone and Faber/Pulver II, and WEC 39 is scheduled for March 1st, featuring Mike Brown vs. Leonard Garcia and Carlos Condit vs. Brock Larson.

In other important non-UFC matchup news...

Now that it's looking more likely that Gina Carano will face Kelly Kobald-Gavin at EliteXC's next CBS card on October 4th, we decided to do some scouting. Above is the video of KK-G's last win, which came against Adrienna Jenkins last March in Minneapolis at an all-female fight event called "NFF: The Breakout." (Props to MMALinker.) Watch as Kobald comes out like a woman scorned, beating Jenkins to the mat with power punches, then tying her up in a triangle choke and slugging her in the face until she gives up. Reffing provided by the incomparable Nick "The Goat" Thompson!

Now, some fights from last night's WEC show...

(The brief and violent lightweight title match between Jamie Varner and Marcus Hicks.)