Photo credit: Naoki Fukuda – By Sam Gregory: In a Jr middleweight face-off between Sergio Martinez who went into this fight with a record of 44 wins with 1 lose, 24 of his wins by KO and Kermit Cintron who was 30-2 with 27 KO’s. The first 2 rounds started out relatively slow and uneventful with both men feeling each other out. The unofficial ringside score had Cintron winning the first two rounds but it really could have gone either way.
In round four Martinez let his hands go and landed some clean punches that won him the round. In round five Cintron suffered a cut above his left eye that came from a right hand of Martinez.
Through the middle rounds of the fight Martinez was landed more harder punches and winning those rounds, Cintron was being out-boxed and it was obvious to his corner; between rounds Ronnie Shields yelled at Cintron to “Jump on his ass.” Martinez seemed very relaxed through the middle rounds of the fight.
In the seventh round Cintron went down by what was clearly shown in a replay as a punch to Cintron’s head followed by a glancing blow. Cintron went to a knee, Martinez went to a neutral corner and referee Frank Santore started his count. When the referee got to the count of 10 he called the fight. The scorecards were handed in and the corner people entered the ring. Cintron jumped up and began to argue that he took a knee because of a head-butt. Ronnie Shields was in the ring arguing with the referee. After Cintron had over 3 and a half minutes to recover from what was clearly shown in a replay as a knockdown, the referee changed his mind and let the fight resume.
Both fighters were amped up after the fiasco but the fight was underway again and Martinez out-landed Cintron 69-31 according to Compubox in overall punches. Throughout the fight Martinez was warned for holding and hitting behind the head. In this fight, like in many other fights I’ve seen Cintron in, when he was hit with more than one punch to the head he had a habit of bending at the waist and ducking his head. When this happened in the 12th round Martinez threw a punch that caught Cintron on the back of the head; Martinez had a point deducted that ended up costing him the fight.
Final judge’s cards were Ged O’Conner 113-113, Peter Trematerra 113-113, and Tom Kaczmarek had it 116-110 for Martinez.
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