Combat sports: Means, 39, has a 'few more' fights remaining
May 11—According to the record keepers, 20-year-old Tim Means made his professional MMA debut on March 13, 2004 in Grand Junction, Colorado.
He said on Thursday, two days before his 49th pro fight and 7 1/2 weeks after his 39th birthday, "I'm more excited for this fight than I was for my first fight."
Translation: though he knows retirement is out there, it's not staring him in the face.
"The way my practices are going and the way my body is handling things, I have a few more left," Means (32-14-1, one no-contest) said during a phone interview from Charlotte, North Carolina, where he's scheduled to face Alex Morono (22-8) Saturday on a UFC card.
"The window is definitely closing, but it's not closed just yet."
The oddsmakers have installed Morono as a 2-1 favorite. In the ways that really matter, though, Means has already beaten the odds.
After a troubled youth that kept him out of the cage for almost four years (2005-09), he has built not just a solid career but a life that has him, he said, settled and well prepared for what is to come after MMA.
Means and his wife, boxer and MMA fighter Brenda Gonzales Means, are wrestling co-head coaches at Moriarty High School, their alma mater. His daughters from a prior relationship, Kristina and Lilly, wrestled for Moriarty this past season and are active in other sports as well.
In June, Means plans to take his daughters and other Moriarty wrestlers to Rocky Mountain Nationals in Las Vegas, Nevada.
"I told my eighth-grader (Lilly) if she places top three there I'd get her a cell phone," he said. "So we'll see how well she does."
Means enters Saturday's fight having lost two in a row for the first time in more than five years. But he won three straight before that, has two fights left on his UFC contract and is not worried about his MMA future from that standpoint.
"I'm a gamer," he said. "I'm fan friendly and I've been easy to work with (in negotiations with the UFC). ... That stuff is not even on the forefront.
"Right now, it's just making weight (on Friday)."
Morono, a 32-year-old from Houston, had won four in a row — including a first-round TKO of now-retired New Mexican Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone — before being TKO'd himself (round 3) by Santiago Ponzinibbio on Dec. 10.
"He's tough," Means said. "He's durable. He has good footwork, a guy that will come find me, get in my face and make me fight."
Means-Morono is scheduled to lead off Saturday's main card, to be telecast on ABC, starting at 1 p.m.
BOXING: In Chester, Pennsylvania, two Las Cruces amateurs advanced to Golden Gloves national semifinal bouts on Friday with victories on Wednesday
Samantha Ginithan (132 pounds) defeated Olivia Blechschmidt of the Mid-South franchise by unanimous decision. Ginithan, a 2022 GG national champion, is scheduled to face Buffalo's Angie Miles in Friday's semifinals.
Ariana Carrasco (154 pounds) defeated Kendra Samargis of the Rocky Mountain Franchise by unanimous decision. She's matched against Cleveland's Rashida Elias in Friday's semis.
Ginithan and Carrasco are members of the Golden Gloves' Colorado-New Mexico franchise. Carrasco, an Organ Mountain graduate, is a Colorado fighter for these purposes as a member of the U.S. Army boxing team, stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs.
A third New Mexico boxer, Albuquerque 147-pounder Ivan Barragan, was scheduled to fight Texas' Adrian Salazar on Wednesday with a finals berth at stake.
The result was not posted on the Golden Gloves website, and efforts on Thursday to reach a Golden Gloves staff member in Pennsylvania were unsuccessful.
GOOD WEEKEND FOR J-W: Jackson-Wink fighters went 6-2 on last Saturday's Peak FC MMA card at Revel Entertainment Center, J-W gym manager Michael Lyubimov reported.
The winners: Cody East (winning a Peak heavyweight title), Lydia Warren, Perry Stargel, Jordan Burkholder, Nick Gjelaj and Marco Soto (Peak welterweight title).
Saturday
UFC on ABC 4: Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Jailton Almeida, Tim Means vs. Alex Morono, several other fights, 1 p.m.
