Cintron’s career on the line tonight against Smith

By Boxing News - 08/12/2011 - Comments

Image: Cintron's career on the line tonight against SmithBy Eric Thomas: A fighter that cannot afford to lose right now is former International Boxing Federation (IBF) welterweight champion Kermit Cintron (32-4-1, 28 KO’s), who is in action tonight against Antwone Smith (20-2-1, 12 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights at the Ameristar Casino in Saint Charles, Missouri.

Cintron, 31, has lost his last two fights against Paul Williams and Carlos Molina, and you can make a good argument that Cintron should have lost four out of his last seven fights because his win over Alfredo Angulo and his 12 round draw against Sergio Martinez looked to be more like losses than wins.

I realize a lot of boxing fans thought that Cintron deserved the win over Angulo, but I’m not one of them. I thought Cintron lost that fight, and I definitely think Cintron should have lost the Martinez fight.

The fact of the matter is Cintron cannot afford to get beat by Smith if he wants to remain a viable fighter in the welterweight or junior middleweight divisions. He’s got to be able to beat a fighter like Smith, who has fought nothing but B level fighters his entire five year pro career.

This is one of those fighters that world class guys are expected to beat, but it’s hard to say that Cintron has enough left to win this fight. He doesn’t look to be the same fighter he once was in the past couple of fights.

Against Paul Williams in May 2010, Cintron dove/fell out of the ring in the 4th round and was injured during the fall. Boxing fans were upset with Cintron that he didn’t get back up and continue fighting.

When Cintron failed to get up on his own, a lot of fans saw it as a quit job by Cintron. And then in his last fight against Carlos Molina in July, Cintron failed to let his hands go. He never did really get into the fight and looked like a shot fighter.



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