By Chris Robinson
At the moment junior middleweight contender Carlos Molina is making the most out of the precious opportunities coming his way.
Inactive since his June 2009 victory over Danny Perez, Molina came into 2011 with a new outlook on his career and has come through resoundingly with a majority draw with unbeaten Cuban Erislandry Lara this past March that many felt Molina deserved to win, a 7th round stoppage of hard-punching Allen Conyers, and most recently a thorough drubbing over former champion Kermit Cintron on July 9th that netted him a 10-round unanimous decision.
In the span of four months we have seen Molina go from an afterthought to now one of the division’s hottest names, with several top promoters angling their charges towards potential matches with the Chicago-based fighter. I happened to run across Molina on the elevator of the Holliday Inn Express in Carson, California a few hours prior to his bout with Cintron and after getting his number I felt it was due time to get in touch with him and share a little bit of his story.
Molina was born in Patzcuaro, Mexico and would end up relocating to Chicago, Illinois around the age of three. He claims to have had fun growing up in the city but admits that he was never really into boxing until he found himself in Wisconsin at the age of seventeen. Less than a year later Molina was competing in an effort to realize his potential.
With only seven amateur fights under his belt, Molina would turn professional on October 23rd, 2003 with a 4th round TKO over James Rice. With his destiny still a mystery, Molina was simply happy to be able to be chasing his dreams at that point.
“It was exciting but it was a learning experience,” Molina reflected. “It felt good and that’s what I always wanted when I first started boxing, was to one day turn pro.”
Molina would end up losing his fourth fight when Phoenix’s Jonothan Ochoa edged him by split-decision in Cicero, Illinois. He would get back on the horse and reel off five straight victories before engaging in two noteworthy bouts with an aspiring Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Their first bout taking place in Monterrey, Mexico, Molina and Chavez would end up duking it out for a draw that many to this day still claim Molina should have won. Just hearing the reaction from Chavez’s hometown crowd affirmed Molina’s belief as to who was the superior fighter on that night.
“I remember them booing me in Mexico when I first got in but when the fight was over they were cheering for me and booing him. That was kind of cool. It pretty much let me know that I won that fight. The second fight was close and it could have been a draw,” Molina stated of his immediate rematch with Chavez at the Aladdin in Las Vegas in February of 2006, a fight that saw him drop a majority decision.
Those duels with Chavez seemed to start a bit of a downward spiral for Molina, as he lost his next fight to Wayland Willingham in New York before returning two months later to be edged by Mike Alvarado via majority decision over eight heats. Alvarado is a solid looking contender from Colorado who was seen scoring a big victory over Gabriel Martinez in his native Denver this past weekend and Molina concedes that there was no shame in falling to him.
“Alvarado, he was a tough fight,” Molina continued. “I started off too slow and that was part of my problem early in my career. I started off slow and gave up the first three or four rounds and then I was playing catch-up. I thought I won the last four rounds and my trainer thought that I won that fight; it was pretty close. Hopefully we can meet again in the ring.”
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Molina would end up heading back to Chicago and teaming up with his current trainer Victor Mateo (although he still also works with his first trainer in Wisconsin, Loue Askenette) before returning a year later to win a decision over Henry Miller and has yet to lose again. However, there was the 21-month window of inactivity following the Perez fight yet he insists it wasn’t his wish to sit on the sidelines.
“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to fight or because I wanted to take a break from boxing, because I didn’t,” said Molina. “What happened was that I signed with Don King and he promised me a fight with Cory Spinks for the world title when he was the champ. I was waiting and the fight never happened, but it was nothing to do with Don King, it was because Cory Spinks couldn’t make weight and he ended up fighting his mandatory which was Cornelius Bundrage.”
Molina would eventually end up settling his ordeal with King as he became a free agent and eyed a prolific run in 2011. The Lara fight came knocking at his door and despite the bitterness of failing to capture the win, it was a fight that still served as a springboard for the 28-year old Molina.
“We knew that coming into the fight that it was going to be hard to get a fight because he was undefeated, a hot prospect,” Molina said of Lara. “So we knew that we had to win every round or drop him or something. So we were kind of expecting the decision to be close and I felt like it was the Chavez Jr. fight all over again.”
But Molina didn’t really have time to feel down as he would return just a month later to pound out Conyers inside of the Cosmopolitan Resort in Las Vegas, the same location of the Lara fight, and then eyed his big opportunity against Cintron. The power-punching former IBF welterweight champion from Puerto Rico, Cintron was looking to use Molina as a showcase for his first fight under Top Rank Promotions but was subsequently steamrolled over the course of ten rounds by a fierce and dogged Molina.
Scores of 98-92 rang across the board for Molina in a performance that typified his style as a fighter; endless activity and serious grit with little room left for any kind of flash. Looking back on the bout you could tell how ready Molina was for that night in Los Angeles.
“Every fight I always feel confident and I always feel good about every fight. We were ready, we were in good shape, and I had fought twice before that this year. I had momentum, conditioning, and I was ready for anything,” added Molina.
Things are now looking up for Molina, as fights with the likes of Philadelphia’s Mikes Jones, former champion Paul Williams, and WBO junior middleweight champion Sergiy Dzinziruk have all been floated around. Molina seems to be open to them all at this point, but for a fighter who has been inactive in the past, time is of the essence.
“They are talking about both of those fights, Mike Jones and Paul Williams. Mike Jones is at 147 and Paul Williams is at 154. I want both of those fights. I want to take both of them, whichever one is made available to me fist. I don’t want to be left waiting."