EDISON MIRANDA

updated May 21, 2007

At the age of 26, Edison is a six-year pro. A hard-hitting contender at 160 pounds, he is coming off a spectacular first-round knockout win against Willie Gibbs in his last fight in December.

Dan Rafael wrote, "One word: Wow! Anyone who had previously seen Miranda knew he was strong and an excellent puncher, but this performance was ultra-impressive... It was a star-making effort...he has that scary kind of power that makes him a must-see fighter. Miranda could be a force."

Boxing columnist Graham Houston wrote, "What impressed me about Miranda was the way he used the jab to set up the right. There was an unhurried way about him. It was jab, jab - body as well as head - the right hand kept in reserve until the opening presented itself. One punch was all it took. Gibbs was spun around by the blow and I think it was more the delayed reaction than the follow-up barrage that caused him to go down.

"I do not always attach a lot of importance to one-round knockouts but I did this one because of the savvy and self-control Miranda showed in waiting for the precisely correct moment to let the right hand fly. He will always have the big punch - now he seems to be adding boxing ability to accompany it."

Edison had his first loss as a pro in his previous fight in September, 2006 - a controversial 12 round decision in an IBF middleweight world title challenge against champion Arthur Abraham in Germany.

Trainer Jose Bonilla said, "I've been working with Edison since January, 2005, before the Howard Eastman fight. We train in my gym in Carolina, Puerto Rico. It's called Escuela de los Desportes, School of Sports. It's a government school, but I'm in charge of it. Edison's offense is good. We're working on his defense, and I think that he's improving.

"Edison is too strong for him. He is too strong for anybody at 160. We are prepared for everything."

Edison said through an interpreter, "My home is in Colombia, but since I've been training so much, I don't spend much time there. I never stop training.

"I've learned a lot of technical things from Bonilla that I didn't know before. I've gotten a lot of help with my right hand punch, I keep it higher now than I did before. We get along very well. We both have a very strong faith in me, and we both have a very strong faith in God.

"My strategy is just to be well-prepared and get in the ring and fight as hard as I can. That's about it."

Co-manager Steve Benbasat [pr. ben-BASS-at] said, "Edison has a very interesting story. I've been working with him since he first came to the U.S., since the Sam Reese fight. He came in a few weeks before that. I hooked him up with Jose Bonilla. They live together six days a week when he's training for a fight.

"Jose Bonilla has been with Tito Trinidad, Fres Oquendo, Joel Casamayor. Bonilla trained them, and he said he's never seen a fighter with so much drive. He asks Pantera to run 40 minutes, he runs 60 minutes. You have to like, slow him down. He wants to learn.

"It was Edison's dream to come to the United States, because he knows that's where boxing careers will be made or won't. He always had that vision."

Regarding his nickname, Edison said, "My manager started calling me Pantera."

Edison said through an interpreter, "I was born in Buenaventura, Colombia. I have no brothers or sisters. The very first thing that I can remember is wanting to be in the United States. That's when I was about seven or eight years old.

"I never knew anything about boxing, but I had a dream one night when I was 14 years old. I dreamed that I was in a boxing ring. The next day I was in the street and an old guy told me, 'Hey, why you don't go to a gym and practice boxing?' I understood that God was telling me something.

"I had 132 amateur fights, 128 victories and four losses. I was a National champion in Colombia four times. I won a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympic Trials in Argentina, but in that tournament, you need to win a gold medal to go to the Olympics.

"I'm single. No children. When I'm at home in Barranquilla, I like to play dominos with my friends and relax. I'm pretty much a homebody."...

2000 Central American Olympic Qualifier, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico - 165 pounds: in his first fight on 4-17-00 he was stopped by Jhim Rodriguez of Venezuela in the 1st round...

From Panteraboxing.com [excerpts]: Edison "Pantera" Miranda has been a fighter his entire life. He was abandoned by his family at just one month old, and spent the rest of his childhood working hard in the plantain and yucca fields of Tumaco on the southern coast of Colombia. By the age of nine, he was living completely on his own, with no parents or adult supervision, sweeping up for a street vendor in neighboring town of Buenaventura and by the time Edison was 12, he was already working a grown man's job in construction. Just two years later, he worked as a cattle butcher in Barranquilla, where he would soon begin pursuing his dream of becoming a champion boxer.

With only five months of training and barely 16 years old, Edison fought his first amateur boxing match on April 17, 1997. The strength and passion that had seen him through the past 15 years became his greatest weapons in the ring - helping him to a first-round knockout against his first-ever opponent. After only four more amateur fights, Edison found himself in the ring with the best fighters in the country, only to succeed with first-round knockouts again and again. He quickly rose to be the National Champion from 1998 to 1999 and was the Champion of the National Games in 2000.

Edison became a professional boxer, but his journey was only halfway over. March, 2002, saw the promising young boxer's arrival in the Dominican Republic. Having been promised a shot at going to the United States to fight the top middleweight fighters in the world, Edison continued with what he's best at - fighting - both in and out of the ring. Struggling to make ends meet, left homeless and hungry by an unfair contract, Edison left the Dominican Republic and returned to Barranquilla, Colombia, on December 24, 2004. With the support of friends, he fulfilled his dream of making it as a boxer in the United States when he signed with Warriors and then had his first American fight in Hollywood, Florida, on May 20, 2005.

"I am God's warrior," Edison says. "I've always put my trust in Him, and He's always protected me. God is the reason I'm here today, and He's the reason I fight. Because I know it's His plan that I be a champion."...

Co-manager Steve Benbasat said, "Edison's mother was 14 years old when she had him. At birth, basically, she gave Edison to a friend or relative and he went from one person to another for the first few months of his life. I guess he fell in with a distant relative for the first nine years of his life, his mother had run off. At nine years old, he was being mistreated so he took it upon himself to walk out the door, by himself, without any family.

"He basically survived from the age of nine all the way through 15, 16, when he started fighting. At nine, he was living in the street. His first motive was to go find his mother, that maybe he could reconnect with her. He travelled through Colombia, what would be the equilvalent of the distance, say, from south Florida to North Carolina, a huge distance.

"He travelled thousands of miles by foot, hopping in the back of trucks, the drivers didn't even know he was in there. He was sleeping under trees, finding roadkill to eat, eating lizards, anything he could put in his mouth. He had rocks thrown at him, he was shot at, he said he thought he was going to die.

"He made it there by himself at the age of nine, and somehow, through word of mouth, got in touch with his mother and made it to her house.

"She had remarried, and the gentleman she married was like, a councilman or the mayor of the town, something like that. When Edison walked into the house, the gentleman that she had married said, 'Make a choice. It's either me or your son.'

She chose to keep her lifestyle with him. Edison overheard this discussion between his mother and her husband and he felt unwanted, so he just left again. So basically, he was abandoned not once, but twice by his mother. Once at birth, and again after nine years of living hell. From nine through 15 he was literally on the streets, doing random construction jobs, digging, whatever it took. He was sleeping under trees, or he would cover himself up in a construction site with a tarp. He would eat whatever he could find on the side of the streets or out of garbage cans. It's pretty mindboggling. But he was driven, he was making money.

"He was with corrupt managers-slash-promoters when he turned pro. Apparently he didn't make a penny for his first 19, 20 fights. They took all the money. They would put him in a hotel and everyone would leave, and he would be stuck without means to pay for the hotel. It was a very turbulent life.

"Puerto Rico has changed his life in a major way. Everything from the people there that have treated him very well and taken care of him. Trainer Jose Bonilla has become a father figure to him, and Edison lives with him six days a week when he's training for a fight. Edison is very thankful for Puerto Rico, and now wears a Puerto Rican flag on his trunks."...

Regarding his mother, Edison said, "Recently, we have become closer, but it's not because she looks for me. I look for her. I speak with her every once in a while. Regardless of what went on, she is still my mother and I need to be there for her. She's the one that gave birth to me."...