Jean-Baptiste Mendy always wanted to earn a college degree but the Frenchman was forced to fight for survival instead. That led him to fight in the ring.
“My dream has always been to study psychology, but how do you study when you don’t have money?” he told Le Figaro in 1994, as he was preparing to face Miguel Angel Gonzalez in his first world title fight .
“So at a key point in my life I tried to be someone in the ring and have a pretty [successful] career.”
Mendy, who died at 57 of pancreatic cancer on Monday, definitely found success in boxing.
The native of Senegal, who moved as a baby to Paris, was a two-time lightweight champion and one of the better 135-pounders of his era. He could box, he could punch and he wasn’t afraid to fight anyone.
The meeting with the then-unbeaten Gonzalez didn’t go well. Mendy (55-8-3, 31 KOs) was stopped by the Mexican star in the fifth round outside Paris, but he persevered.
He received his second opportunity to fight for a major belt in April 1996, when he outpointed Lamar Murphy by a unanimous decision to win the vacant title at the same venue in which he fell to Gonzalez.
Mendy lost his title in his first defense to the highly respected Stevie Johnston by a split decision in March 1997 in Paris. Then, the following February, he challenged Khalid Rahilou for a 140-pound title but lost a close unanimous decision in Paris.
Three months after that he went back down to 135 and fairly easily outpointed Orzubek Nazarov to win a lightweight title for the second time, also in Paris. He finally lost his belt by a sixth-round stoppage to countryman Julien Lorcy in April 1999, once again in Paris.
Mendy fought three more times and then retired at 37. He went on to work as a storekeeper in Arcueil, a Parisian suburb.