Medina Gives Dorsey a Boxing Lesson at Forum : Featherweights: Former kick-boxer gets worn down by Tijuana fighter in title bout.

Manuel Medina, a punchless but determined challenger from Tijuana, survived two early knockdowns, picked up the pace of the fight, cut champion Troy Dorsey over both eyes and won a 12-round unanimous decision to gain the International Boxing Federation featherweight championship Monday night at the Forum.

Dorsey, defending his title for the first time, started off by knocking Medina on his wallet in both the second and third rounds and seemed headed for a blowout before the crowd of 5,515.

But Dorsey, a 28-year-old from Mansfield, Tex., who says he “walks around” at 145 to 150 pounds between fights for which he must trim down to 126 pounds, seemed to begin running out of gas in the fourth round, just as Medina, 20, began increasing the pace.

Medina (39-3), whose best shot might not crack an egg, began peppering Dorsey’s face with left jabs, preventing any repeat deliveries of the right hands that had decked him earlier. Dorsey (11-4-4) picked up a cut in the fourth round that opened up even more in the fifth.

By the late rounds, the exhausted Dorsey, his face streaming with blood, was lunging and lurching about the ring, the smoothness of his early-round assault long gone. Both cuts were on Dorsey’s eyelids, but ringside physician Robert Karns, who examined Dorsey three times during the bout, said afterward the beaten champion’s eyes were clear.

Dorsey, who earned $75,000, lost his lead over Medina at the midway point, then continued to lose rounds in the stretch.

The judges scored it for Medina by margins of 115-112, 115-111 and 114-111. The Times card had Medina ahead, 116-111, the winner taking the last nine rounds.

“I was a one-punch fighter tonight, I couldn’t get my motor running,” Dorsey said. “It looked like I was going to get rid of him early, but he just kept coming.”

Medina, who made $15,000, said the second knockdown woke him up. “I decided then that I’d better start boxing or I was going to lose to this guy,” he said.

And so the Forum continues its reputation as a burial ground for champions. It was the fifth time since 1989 that a champion has lost his title there.

Also Monday night, Louie Espinoza of Phoenix, onetime world super-bantamweight champion, was ahead on points in the eighth round of a featherweight bout when he walked into a right hand by Jose Martinez of Hanford, Calif., and was knocked cold.

Espinoza (41-5-2) caught a short, powerful right on the chin, crashed face-down at center ring and was counted out by Larry Rozadilla at 2:59 of the eighth. He remained on the floor for 3 1/2 minutes. Martinez (16-4-1) seemed on the verge of being knocked out in the sixth.