Cintron Ready, but Puerto Rican champions pick Margarito
by
José Manuel Martinó
2/24 - After last Fridays impressive win of António Margarito over tough but outmatched Sebastián Andrés Lujan, the stage has been set for the latest chapter in the long standing rivalry between Puerto Rican and Mexican boxers as Kermit “The Killer” Cintron is expected to face Margarito on ESPN Pay Per View April 23 from the Ceaser’s Palace in Las Vegas.
ESPN’s first ever boxing PPV gives boxing fans plenty to get excited about as Sugar “Shane” Mosley makes his return to the welterweight division against a formidable opponent David Estrada. The only blemish on Estrada’s record is a loss at the hands of undefeated prospect Ishe Smith, and is currently on a 3-fight winning streak, with two of those wins coming off then undefeated welterweights Nurhan Suleymanoglu and Chris Smith.
WBA lightweight champion, Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz (27-0), is also expected to make the third defense of his title against The X-treme Machine, Ebo Elder (22-1), and rounding off the card is very interesting heavyweight bout between Calvin Brock (24-0) and Jameel McCline (31-4-3).
However, there is no denying that it is the main event that fight fans are most looking forward to.
And we all have the boxing gods to thank for this fight even taking placing as it once seemed in doubt if Cintron, who’s career has been hampered by hand injuries, would be ready for what is considered as the toughest challenge of his young career. Cintron was originally scheduled to star in the main event of last week’s ESPN card and at one point had even been mentioned as the original opponent for Lujan, while Margarito would face Carlos Manuel Baldomir, who like Lujan is from Argentina. Later Steve Martinez would be listed as Cintron’s opponent, and eventually The Killer would be scratched from the card all together citing hand problems as the reason.
Joe Pastore, Kermit’s strength trainer and manager commented about the hand problems.
“What happened was when we started his strength and conditioning training for his proposed fight with Steve Martinez he had been going through physical therapy with the hand and icing it three times a day as he was instructed to by Doctor Malone, and the hand never appeared to be getting better or returning back to normal. We went to follow up visits with Doctor Malone and he said the hand was fine; everything looked great so we just took him at his word. Then when Kermit went to punch with it the first day he almost hit the floor. So we got two second opinions and both doctors found that the bones in the knuckles were in the early stages of avascular necrosis, which is where the blood supply to the bone is poor and the bone actually begins to die. Also the capsule over the knuckle joint was not repaired properly and the tendon was reattached at the wrong spot…so he had to get that fixed.”
With Kermit about to face a proven and experienced champion, rumors began to circulate that the April 23 match would not come off. However, Joe reassured us that Kermit’s hand will be fine and that Cintron will be ready come fight time.
“The day after Kermit had his second surgery the hand looked better than it had the previous six months. It looks great now, we just started conditioning training today (2/23/2005) and in two weeks he will begin sparring working his left hand. According to the doctors and the physical therapists they anticipate no problem whatsoever”, said Pastore.
Cintron, along with his team, were on hand to witness Margarito dismantle and almost rip Lujan’s ear off, but where not overly impressed by what they saw.
“I thought he looked like he always does, because he’s a slow starter. Margarito’s best asset is his always in shape, because all his punches are wide. You definitely can’t back up against him, because that is where he gets his momentum. I noticed that in certain fights of his, mainly when he fought Danny Perez and Daniel Santos… that when someone was punching back at him, standing their ground, Margarito’s punch output dropped dramatically”, said Pastore.
In an interview published in the Spanish section of this site Daniel Santos would make similar remarks about Margarito. When asked why he decided to stand and trade with Margarito instead of box as we are customed on seeing from him, Santos had the following to say:
“I felt real good. Like you yourself know my style is to box before anything else, but in the first round I felt good fighting him the way I did. In the second round I tried to continue on with the same style and I noticed that in the first and second round I was doing well attacking and in the following rounds I maintained the same style of fighting. My corner told me to box a bit more, but I felt I was doing well with the type of style I was using and I determined that this was what I had to do to win.”
And so fight fans can look forward to a fight between two great fighters where one of them will be looking to come forward and attack with his devasting power which has earned him the alias “The Killer”, while the other one, a proven warrior who is known to have great stamina, will be looking to overwhelm his foe with his high volume of punches. Put it all together and you have the makings of an outstanding fight which could someday be talked about as another one of the greats between Puerto Rican and Mexican fighters.
For all you Kermit fans keep an eye out for his site kermitcintron.net which is currently been updated and will be reoponed next week. To kick things off we will be having an interview with Kermit himself.
Puerto Rican champions picking Margarito over Cintron
In an interesting turn of events Puerto Rican champions Daniel Santos and Jose Rivera, in different interviews which I conducted with them, have picked Antonio Margarito to beat Kermit Cintron. Both stated that it was a good match between evenly matched fighters, but the difference in experience was cited as the key factor in their picks. Of course the fact that Cintron picked Margarito over Santos and that Rivera might be looking at Cintron as a future rival may have had something to do with their picks. Obviously their is no friendship influencing their choices as was the case when Miguel Cotto would tab his good buddy Henry Bruseles to beat Floyd Mayweather a few weeks ago.
Rocky back March5
Puerto Rico’s 2004 prospect of the year, Roman "Rocky" Martinez(10-0-1), is expected to return to the ring on the untelevised portion of the Julio Diaz-Jose Luis Castillo card on March 5. Rocky who is coming off a 5 round KO over Mario Lacey, will be facing Derrick Moon(9-6-1) an awkward fighter who owns a victory over 2000 Puerto Rican Olympian Edwin Algarin.
Jesse Feliciano to continue fighting
Jesse Feliciano(12-3-2) and his dad and trainer Tony Feliciano have decided to continue with their boxing career after a disastrous one round TKO loss at the hands of undefeated Greek prospect Mike Arnaouti. Jesse did go through 13 fights without a loss against fighters with a combined 107-27 record, before been TKOd in 8 rounds by 2000 Olympic gold medalist Mohamad Abdulaev. Jesse would than lose his next fight against Arnaouti. I hope the rest has done Jesse well and he can come back from the back to back loses as he is an exciting fighter who gives his all once he steps inside the ring.
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