Eric Molina Thinking about Retirement
Having found himself on the wrong side of a third round stoppage defeat at the hands of Filip Hrgovic (10-0, 8 KO’s), veteran boxer Eric “Drummer Boy” Molina (27-6, 19 KO’s) is seriously contemplating retirement. Molina and Hrgovic staged a lively, albeit brief, bout on the undercard of Ruiz v Joshua 2.
THE FINAL STRAW
To his credit, the Drummer Boy enjoyed a great deal of success in the second period. This was when he was able to repeatedly land a thudding overhand right. For an extended portion of the round, Hrgovic was a sitting duck for the amply-used money shot. Eventually, Hrgovic put Molina back on the defensive with a series of crunching body blows.
Ultimately, in the third round, the highly-touted Croatian boxer landed one final blow to the back of Molina’s head that felled the Texan. The Drummer Boy complained about punches to the back of the head all night.
In all honesty, Hrgovic did connect with a substantial amount of rabbit punches. At the same time though, Molina insisted on bending at the waist for the entire fight. His willful compromised position is the only reason that his head was exposed in the first place. Referee Ian John Lewis felt as though the last punch was legal and subsequently counted Molina out.
“It was either the first or second shot I took to the head, it was extremely damaging, it was. It was a shot that I took that inside of my thoughts I was like ‘I can’t take another punch like that.’ When you’re inside that ring, and fighters know what I’m talking about, when you take a good shot and you think, ‘shit I can’t get with that, a shot like that again, because if I get hit with that again I’ll be really hurt.’ I got that feeling after the second shot behind the head.”
DETRIMENTAL HEAVY-HANDED JUDGEMENT
The fact that Molina had a substandard showing should not come as a jaw-dropping surprise. Before Hrgovic the Drummer Boy had fought the wildly unheralded Nick Guivas (14-10-3, 9 KO’s) ten months prior. Before Guivas, Molina sat out of the ring for nearly two years. The abnormally long hiatus was anything but voluntary.
Having been flagged for adverse finding by UKAD, Molina was saddled with a whooping two years suspension. Although the Drummer Boy took the penalty on the chin, he has remained a bit bitter over the whole situation.
To begin, Molina is angered that he was suspended due to taking B-12 shot that contained an anti-inflammatory agent. It was proven that there were no traces of actual performance enhancing drugs in his system. Nevertheless, Molina sat on the sidelines and lost critical years in his professional career.
THE END OF THE ROAD
With those years lost to the void of time, Molina was forced to reevaluate his career and future. For the entire time that the Drummer Boy has competed professionally as a boxer, he has held a job as a teacher for special needs students. Said to say, Molina boxes because he wants to and not because he has too. It appears that this interest has greatly waned.
After staging this most recent dust-up with Filip Hrgovic, Molina is coming to the realization that he does not the stomach for this line of work any longer. While appearing as a guest on ThaBoxingVoice, he supplied an almost impromptu notice that he had one foot out the door. While he never actually said he was leaving the sport, the Texan said everything just shy of those words. It will be interesting to see what Eric Molina opts to do in the upcoming weeks and months.
As a professional, Molina has gone head to head with Chris Arreola, Tomasz Adamek, Dominic Breazeale, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.
“I’ll be honest Nestor man, I’ve been doing this twelve, thirteen years and when I finished that fight, these guys are young, they’re big, they’re strong and I’ve been thinking about it every single day and I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’ll get back in the ring. I don’t think I can go in there. If I can’t compete with guys like Hrgovic and these top guys, I don’t know if it’ll be in me to just go in…
“I’m not saying that I’m announcing retirement but I definitely, definitely have been thinking about walking away…this heavyweight division is so dangerous.”
By: Bakari Simpson
