By Jason Kim: Kermit Cintron (33-4-1, 28 KO’s) had almost every advantage on Friday night against his smaller, weaker, slower and much more inexperienced opponent Antwone Smith (20-3-1, 12 KO’s), but still looked horrible in grinding out an unimpressive 10 round unanimous decision by the scores of 98-92, 96-94 and 97-93 to get the win at the Ameristar Casino, Saint Charles, Missouri.

This was the 31-year-old Cintron’s first victory in over two years, which tells you all you need to know about the direction that Cintron’s career has turned in recent years. Cintron threw over 1000 punches tonight in beating Smith, which an incredibly amount for only 10 rounds. Cintron averaged over 100 punches thrown per round.

Unfortunately, they were the arm punch variety and not the power punches he could have used to get Smith out of there inside the distance. Why Cintron opted to not make some subtle changes to his game is unclear, because by allowing the 5’7″ Smith to stick around, Cintron was forced into a very hard fight rather than one which could have been easy had Cintron opened up with his artillery. He can still punch but other than 8th round, where he really unloaded on Smith, he was throwing a lot of arm punches in the other rounds.

Smith kind of forced Cintron’s hand in a lot of ways by taking the to him and pressuring him on the inside. The 5’11” Cintron instead of boxing and using his much longer reach to dominate from the outside, he went along with Smith’s plan of attack by fighting him on the inside and taking a lot of punishment.

With this win, Cintron plans on moving back up to the junior middleweight division. I can’t see him doing very well there, but he’s probably remembering his last big win against Alfredo Angulo and might think he can do the same thing against someone else at that weight. I kind of doubt it. He doesn’t fight like the same fighter that briefly found success in 2007 before getting stopped by Antonio Margarito for the second time in April 2008.