Jean-Paul Mendy
Jean -Paul Mendy ( born December 14, 1973 in Mantes- la -Jolie ) is a former French boxer.
Amateur career
The approximately 1.80 m tall southpaw boxed as an amateur only in the middleweight division and in 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998 and 2000 French champion. He won the bronze medal at the World Cup 1994 in Bangkok and the gold medal at the Copenhagen Cup in Denmark. In 1996 he reached the silver medal at the Strandja Tournament in Bulgaria after he moved, among other things by defeating Mohamed Bahari finals and there was defeated by Ariel Hernández. The 1996 European Championships in Vejle, he finished with the bronze medal. Through victories against Dejan Capetić from Croatia, Valery Kusmintsew from Bulgaria and Brian Magee from the UK, he was drafted into the semifinals, where he was eventually ausgepunktet the German Sven Ottke. This was defeated in the first fight already at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
In June 1997, he still reached the second place at the Mediterranean Games in Bari after he lost the final against local favorite Italian Raffaele Bergamasco. In September he won the Games of La Francophonie in Antananarivo, where he was able to defeat Rival Cadeau of the Seychelles, Joseph Ranarison from Madagascar and Mourad Louhichi from Tunisia. In October, a bronze medal followed at the World Championships in Budapest, after hitting Stjepan Bozic of Croatia and Mchitar Wanesian from Armenia and was eliminated in the semifinals again against Ariel Hernandez.
Another bronze medal he won at the European Championships 1998 in Minsk. After winning duels against Ivan Ribac from Serbia and Fırat Karagöllü from Turkey, he departed from this time in the semi-final against Zsolt Erdei from Hungary. In August 1998 he participated in the Goodwill Games in New York City part and struggled against the top favorites Randy Griffin ( USA) and Dmitri Strelchinin (Russia) before the final, where he again, albeit barely, against Ariel Hernandez with 14:15 lost.
At Golden Belt Tournament 1999 in Romania, he was defeated by Gaidarbek Gaidarbekow and the Multi Nations tournament in England in 2000 against Carl Froch.
Professional career
In 2000 he became a professional, won eight fights in a row and secured on 26 February 2002 the French champion in Super Middleweight by a points victory against Rachid Kanfouah ( Record: 19 wins - 1 loss ), the three European Championship struggles against the later German Danilo Haussler, Thomas Ulrich and Brähmer was known.
In his next 14 fights, he remained undefeated, but he suggested including the WBC Youth World Champion Sergei Karanewitsch ( 14-5 ), the amateur European champion from 1998 Frédéric Esther (14-1 ) and again Rachid Kanfouah, and the two Americans Dallas Vargas ( 21-2 ) and Henry Buchanan ( 14-0 ). He then punched on 5 January 2007 in Mississippi to the championship belt of the IBO against the undefeated American Anthony Hanshaw ( 21-0 ). After a hard fight the duel, however, was considered a tie, whereby the world title remained vacant.
After following five victories, including winning the title, the IBF International Championship against Canadian Jason Naugler ( 18-8 ), he received a world title eliminator against Sakio Bika ( 28-3 ). In this duel on July 31, 2010 in Las Vegas, Mendy was knocked out in the first round of the Australian's an uppercut. Since Mendy had however already been found by a previous match in the kneeling position, looking up Bika was considered a foul and disqualified the Australians then.
So Mendy received on 9 July 2011 in Bucharest a title fight for the championship belt of the IBF super middleweight against Lucian Bute ( 28-0 ), but lost by KO then in the fourth round and finished his career.