Carlos Molina Battles a Case of Mistaken Identity

By Carlos Arias

LAS VEGAS --- Super-lightweight Carlos Molina of Norwalk used to have a laugh when people would mistake him for IBF junior-middleweight world champion Carlos Molina of Chicago, Ill.

"Even some of my family members, when he would be fighting, they would say, 'Hey, good luck on your fight,' (and I'm like), 'It's not me,'" said Molina, who faces former world champion Adrien Broner on the Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana undercard on Saturday at the MGM Grand on Showtime PPV.

But the mistaken identity thing hasn't been too funny lately. The IBF 154-pound champion was recently jailed days before his pay-per-view bout against Jermall Charlo in March. The charges stemmed from a 2001 sexual assault conviction, failing to register as a sex offender and illegally coming into the country after being deported to Mexico.

Now, Norwalk's Molina finds himself being mistaken for the other Molina even by HBO's Jim Lampley.

"Yeah, it's been crazy," Molina said. "Everybody's confusing us. At first I never had a problem when they were confusing me because he was a world champion. Once they started saying he had a sexual assault or whatever he did I said, 'Oh man, we need to clarify it's not me.'

"People confusing me and mentioning my name and different things whether it's the media of Twitter and stuff. There was a few places where they put up my picture, like my face, and I'm like, 'Hey, hold up. That's not me. You guys need to do your homework."

Molina, who has never met the other Molina, said he would try to correct people whenever the mistaken identity thing happened, but it got out of control.

"I did that for a while in the beginning, but then I was like forget it," Molina said. "I think one was actually the L.A. Times. They put my picture up, so I had to do that. But then I had my friend, my manager, Frank, and he took care of it. He said they apologized."

Contact Carlos Arias on Twitter @PunchyMcGee.