ATLANTIC CITY – After suffering a serious laceration over his right eye and being sent to a knee by his opponent’s nonstop attack, Thomas “Cornflake” LaManna admits that he doubted whether he could turn it around. His fight against Juan Rodriguez Jnr, a former sparring partner of his, was billed as LaManna’s farewell fight.
His timing was off, and his feints were not nearly as effective as he had hoped they would be. As he went back to his corner after that disastrous fourth round, he expressed his doubts to trainer Reg Lloyd.
“I told Reg, like, ‘Yo, I think I lost it, bro. Like, I really lost it. Fuck,’” recalls the 34-year-old LaManna. Instead of letting LaManna fall apart, Lloyd got his fighter back on track.
“‘The fuck you didn’t. No you didn’t, go find it,’” LaManna recalls of Lloyd’s response. “And I just told myself, ‘Hey, man, go get him.’”
That’s exactly what LaManna did. After two brutal knockdowns in the fifth round, LaManna escaped with a victory in what he insists is his last time stepping in the ring.
Asked if being in a thriller would make him more likely to return to the ring, LaManna responded that it had the opposite effect. In fact, he would have preferred to end his career on a routine win.
“Ain't gonna miss that. How the fuck do people go careers with that type of shit, like multiple fights like that consistently? You lost your fucking mind,” said LaManna, now 40-6-1 (19 KOs).
“I really probably would rather have a clean, nice, smooth performance, but I’ll take what I can get.”
LaManna had made up his mind that he was done with the sport after his previous fight, a sixth-round stoppage loss to Jermall Charlo in May. It was the fourth stoppage loss in his 14-year career, and was his second attempt at cracking the sport’s upper echelon, following his 2021 first-round knockout loss to Erislandy Lara for the WBA middleweight title. Still, LaManna admits even making it to fight night was a struggle.
“I lost the love before the fight, bro, I don’t love it no more. I just don’t,” he admits.
That isn’t to say that LaManna won’t be involved in the sport going forward. His company, Rising Star Promotions, has been around for 10 years and is now the most active boxing promotion in New Jersey. Rising Star was initially started as a vehicle to move his own career after LaManna was released by his then-promoter Russell Peltz following his 2015 stoppage loss to Antoine Douglas. But now it has helped build the careers of several fighters who are under LaManna’s guidance, including Gabriel Gerena and Justin Palmieri.
He also owns and operates a boxing gym, P4P Boxing & Fitness, in Atco, New Jersey.
LaManna feels that staying busy outside the ring will help him stay away from fighting again.
“I think that's gonna keep me out of fighting, because I'm still in boxing,” said LaManna. “I'm still gonna be working out. I love working out. I love running. I love all that good shit. I'll hit the bag. I'll do the sauna with some people, so I'll be in it.
“But I'm not gonna miss this.”
Seated at ringside was LaManna’s father, Vinny LaManna, who himself had been a promoter for many years. He joked that Thomas, who had the number 49 emblazoned on the back of his trunks, would now have to come back to score nine more victories to reach that number.
The cut over his right eye, which was a reinjuring of the cut LaManna suffered in the Charlo fight, was closed with liquid stitches. He believes that will be the last time he has to worry about fixing a cut over one of his eyes.
“I want to move on to other things,” LaManna said.
“I like being a big fish in a small pond. So I have a great thing going in Carteret and Newark, because nobody's doing shows. Let's attack that market, all those fighters there. I want to take it to the next level.”
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
