this guy is a living legend .. 5 i repeat 5! time feather weight champion .. this guy deserves tons of respect .. he's been in there with them all .. he's won and lost .. but damn five world titles in a weightclass is astonishing ..
to achieve it he had to lose it 4 times.. and then came the 5th. don't you think that holding a title for a long period and unifying if possible and defending it for a long time is much more impressing than gaining and losing it time after time ? but hey , at least all the titles he won were not vacant and he did not vacate , which many times is a sign of ... a duck !
Manuel was old school in the new age...Never say die attitude, amazingly conditioned right up until his last fights...I was a big fan of his when he was around, he had his limitations but his approach to the sport was that of a true Mexican warrior.
You have to take your hat off to a boxer who can keep motivating themselves to stay at the top for that long. I also have to tip my hat to his manager getting him 11 world title shots THATS ELEVEN WORLD TITLE SHOTS!!!!! But Mendina probably doesnt make the top5 cut of the 90s all the same and he was always a titlist never linear/undisputed/ring champ
I think his only real limitation was his lack of Power and maybe he got hit more than he should have. He had pretty fast hands and excellent boxing skills. I think he was robbed against Tapia,and im a big Tapia fan but Medina won that fight.
I agree about the Tapia fight...He just consistently outlanded Johnny all night. I never scored it though, did you anarci? I dont think he had the best defensive reflexes or skill in that department...but he just never was a defensive minded fighter. He had pretty good standup skills and he is that intense, fundamentally sound fighter that can be so hard to beat. Kind of like Yuh in a way...because what he lacked in power and defensive ability he made up in up in other departments...like his conditioning and iron will. Manuel certainly did it the hard way...Molina, Espinosa, Hamed, JMM..for him to be a serious contender for that long is simply amazing.
YEy i scored it back then i cant remember exactly how i scored it but i think I had him ahead by like 3 points. I thought he could have had a good defense cause he was pretty fast and had good skills, he climbed off the Canvas a couple times to put a whipping on Troy Dorsey. Beatin the favored Harrison in England was a huge win also the win over Cobrita Gonzalez was big(I was real High on CObrita too) Dont know why he never ended up being as good as he could have. Ok back to Medina and he pretty much fought Tom Johnson on even terms in all of their fights.
