Cintron: Does He Have Problems Handling Pressure?

By Scott Gilfoid: Once again, Kermit Cintron (30-2-1, 27 KOs) blows a fight that he easily has the skills to win with his latest flub up, a 12-round draw with Sergio Martinez this past weekend. I don’t know what Cintron’s problem is but whatever it is, I thinking it’s beyond fixing at this point. It was sickening to watch him crumble under the slightest bit of pressure from Martinez, backing off and fighting defensively for much of the fight.

Maybe he was trying to keep from getting knocked out again like he was against Antonio Margarito, but why fight that was against a light hitter like Martinez? Sergio couldn’t punch his way out of a wet paper bag and isn’t a threat to knock out anyone, even Cintron with his questionable chin. And what happened in the 7th?

What was that all about? Cintron gets tagged, dropped and immediately starts moaning to the referee about having been head butted by Martinez. For me, it seemed like a ploy to try and buy time to clear his head because he had to have known the difference between getting hit with a glove and getting hit with a head.

If it was a trick to get more time, it worked because the referee seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt when he got up late at the count of 10. Poor Martinez loses a knockout in the deal, then gets messed over by the referee again when he take point from Martinez for hitting Cintron when he’s ducking into a punch.

The scores seemed bizarre. How can two people (both scoring it 113-113) differ so widely with the other guy who scores it 116-110 for Martinez. It was like those two judges were watching a whole different fight instead of this one. Cintron fought an incredibly poor fight, and got incredibly lucky when both the judges and the referee gave Martinez the royal treatment and screwed him over.

I can’t see any good things for Cintron in the future with him moving back down to welterweight. Miguel Cotto, or whoever Cintron fights, is going to massacre him similar to the way that Margarito did, and all it will take is a little bit of pressure.

I don’t know what happens to the guy, but when he has someone coming at him hard, he often goes to pieces and takes punishment or in the case of Margarito – gets knocked out. Maybe he should think seriously about moving down to the light welterweight division instead of the welterweights, because at least he’d have smaller guys to fight and he’d possibly do better when being pressured hard.

Better to face the small guys like Ricky Hatton rather than someone like Martinez, who had him on the run for much of the fight. It was horrible to see him fighting so fearful looking. I don’t know what I ever saw in this guy’s talent.

He looked great five years ago against fighters like Elio Ortiz and Teddy Reid, knocking out most of them and holding an unbeaten record, but once he stepped it up against a quality fighter in Margarito, he sent to pieces and folded under the pressure from him.

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