By Jim Dower: Later on tonight former IBF welterweight champion Kermit Cintron (30-2-1, 27 KO’s) will be putting his career on the line with a fight against the dangerous undefeated Alfredo Angulo (15-0, 12 KO’s) in an important bout at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. Also on the card, WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto (24-0, 19 KO’s) will be making his third defense of his title against Juan Urango (21-1, 16 KO’s).
Cintron, 29, has had problems as of late, losing by 6th round knockout to Antonio Margarito last year in April and then fighting to a 12-round draw with Sergio Martinez in February 2009. Cintron needs to be very careful in tonight’s bout with the 26-year-old Angulo. In both of Cintron’s losses to Margarito, Kermit made the mistake of trying to slug it out with the busier Mexican fighter.
As we’ve seen in both of those fights as well as in Cintron’s bout with Martinez in which Kermit was dropped by a left hand, Cintron needs to stay on the outside and move around and pick his spots to land his bombs. Cintron can’t afford to stay within range of Angulo and let him land his big shots.
Cintron has good boxing skills when he decides to use them. His jab is one of the best in boxing and if he can focus on using that and avoid slugging it out with Angulo, I think Cintron has a good chance of taking Angulo deep into the fight.
Angulo’s chin is suspect after being hurt against Richard Gutierrez, so he’s not unbeatable. However, Cintron needs to stay away from Angulo and pick up points by jabbing him from the outside. Angulo has really poor hand speed so it’s possible that Cintron can out-box him until late in the fight.
At that point, Cintron might want to take some chances and see if he can dent Angulo’s chin to see if he can get him out of there. If the knockout doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, I would advise Cintron to go back to boxing from the outside to avoid running into one of Angulo’s big shots.
Angulo can hit hard, but he’s more of a fighter that breaks his opponents down with repeated blows during the course of the right rather than by landing on big shot.
Angulo will likely go right after Cintron and try to trap him against the ropes where Angulo can tee off with his high volume shots. If I were Angulo, I would try to pressure Cintron as much as possible to see if I can break him down. Cintron has folded under the pressure in his two fights with Margarito and had problems with B level fighter Jesse Feliciano in 2007.
In the Berto-Urango fight, Berto, 25, needs to use his fast hand and movement to hit and move. Berto can probably punch as hard as Urango, but Berto tends to get beaten up in his fights and he struggles when hit a lot.
If Berto stands and trades with Urango, there’s a good possibility that Urango will have too much power for Berto and will take him out or at the very least badly hurt and make the fight much closer than it would otherwise be.
Berto has the much better hand speed and boxing skills, but he’s facing a relentless fighter in Urango and will have to fight smart if he wants to get out of this fight in one piece.
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