Saturday, February 01, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Seventeen years later, Medina much the same man
By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Manuel Medina was 14 years old. He had learned to box two years earlier to protect himself from the bullies who were picking on him.
Food and material goods were scarce. Prospects were dim. So he did the only thing he knew he could do to make money: He turned professional.
He made $10 for his first fight, $20 for his second. He fought more than a dozen times before he made more than $100, and it took him 30 fights to make $1,000.
It is a long way from his humble beginnings in the mid-1980s as a stringbean bantamweight to tonight, when he will make $125,000 in his 18th world title fight when he meets Juan Manuel Marquez at Mandalay Bay for the vacant IBF featherweight title.
But as much as things have changed, many have stayed the same. Medina still is reed-thin, and he still pops his punches with the frequency of a piston. In his last fight, a controversial majority decision loss to Johnny Tapia in April, Medina set a record for most punches by a featherweight in a 12-round bout -- 1,466.
And, despite his 31 years and 72 professional bouts, he's still able to make the featherweight limit of 126 pounds comfortably. He is tall for the division at 5 feet 9 inches and has a 71-inch reach, figures that are more common in the welterweight division.
Medina said he never has weighed more than 140 and gleefully admits he can eat whatever he wants. Rich Neiderman, the catering manager at The Orleans, is one of Medina's closest friends. Neiderman frequently visits Medina in his Tijuana, Mexico, home and marvels at the way he can eat.
"We'll go to this place to have lobster, and there are three toll booths on the way," Neiderman said. "At every one, he gets out and has cupcakes, doughnuts, cookies, chocolate. You name it, he has it. And he never has a problem with his weight."
Medina is one of 10 active fighters with 60 or more victories, and he and former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield are the only active fighters to have had a title in the same division four times.
Medina has had the IBF featherweight title three times and was the WBC featherweight champion once. He has fought 14 world champions and is 9-8 in title fights.
Yet, Medina has an extraordinarily low profile and hasn't gotten the recognition that would seem to be his due. Yet, the easygoing boxer has few complaints.
"My job is to fight, and that's what I do," Medina said. "The press has its job, and they have to write what they believe. When you're a pro, you just do your job every time the best you can and don't worry about anything else."
The highly regarded Marquez will provide Medina with one of his stiffest tests, but Medina has been down this road. Nothing he'll see in the ring will bother him.
He's eager to right what he thinks is the wrong he was handed in the Tapia fight and get back on top of the division.
"After all these years, I'm still here and I'm still fighting," Medina says, grinning broadly. "And I'm still winning. That's what I'm going to do (tonight). I will win."
The six-bout card will begin at 4:50 p.m. in the South Pacific ballroom at Mandalay Bay.
