By Dan Ambrose: Believe it or not, Kermit Cintron (33-4-1, 28 KO’s) could wind up being the next challenger for the WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (38-0-1, 28 KO’s) instead of a more relevant contender in the division.
Dan Rafael is reporting that Cintron is being lined up to face Alvarez, who wants to squeeze in one more title defense before the end of the year. Cintron, 33, would be perfect for a quick, easy defense for the young 21-year-old Canelo.
The one problem is Cintron isn’t ranked in the top 15 by the world Boxing Council at the moment. That will likely change as soon as the Alvarez-Cintron fight gets closer to being made. You’ll likely see Cintron conveniently moved up as high as number #7 or higher. Cintron has lost two out of his last three fights, and looked terrible in beating Antwone Smith recently by a 10 round decision last August.
Cintron doesn’t seem to be able to put his punches together anymore, and his power isn’t overwhelming his junior middleweight opponents the way it was when he was fighting at welterweight.
Alvarez will likely take a lot of heat if he ends up facing Cintron, because Alvarez already has had it easy in his last five bouts against Carlos Baldomir, Lovemore N’dou, Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes and Alfonso Gomez. That’s a pretty average bunch of fighters. Baldomir and N’dou were good fighters earlier in their career but are now long in the tooth, and weren’t much of a test. Boxing fans want to see Alvarez facing guys like Alfredo Angulo, Vanes Martirosyan, Erislandy Lara, Carlos Molina. Paul Williams and Pawel Wolak, not guys like Cintron.
Alvarez should be able to easily outbox Cintron in a one-sided 12 round decision. Scoring a knockout is also a good possibility for Alvarez, but he’ll have to take the fight to Cintron the way that Antonio Margarito did in his two knockout wins over Cintron. I’m not sure that Alvarez has the mental toughness to want to try and take Cintron out.
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