Kermit Cintron To Shane Mosley:
Just Step Up To The Plate And Take The Challenge

By Tim Donaldson

When you think of the top fighters who fight in and around the welterweight division, you might think of Miguel Cotto or Shane Mosley. Most definitely, you think of Manny Pacquiao. Kermit Cintron wants you to think of him. “I want to be that top dog, like Pacquiao, who is beating everybody and everybody wants to fight him.” So Shane, don’t take it personally because Kermit Cintron wants to fight you. He wants to fight you for one reason. “He has a big name and a world title. He brings a lot to the table. Beating a guy like that would get me closer to where I want to be.”

Early in Cintron’s career, he was knocking out anyone that they put in front of him. He really did not take it too seriously then. “I was just doing it more for fun,” he said of his early career. But that started to change when he fought Said Ouali. Main Events was watching him that fight. “I went in there, my first time on Showtime, and I froze for the first four rounds. I went to the corner when the fourth round was over. My old trainer had slapped me hard in the face and said do you want to lose your first fight. And that woke me up. I went in there and just did what my trainer wanted me to do and just to throw a right hand and come back with a left hook. And I knocked him out.” Although Main Events passed on him after that fight, they gave him another chance to prove himself. It was another fight on Showtime, this time against Omar Davila. “I just went in there and dominated the fight. From then on that was when I really started to take boxing serious.” His record shows just how seriously he takes boxing. Out of 34 fights, he has won 31, 27 by way of knockout. He went on to hold the WBO and IBF Welterweight titles at different times.

Cintron’s critics will point to his two losses, both against Antonio Margarito. Cintron said of Margarito, “I know I can beat him. It’s just the fact that I have to be well prepared for the fight.” As Cintron sees it, he lost those fights because of the way he decided to fight Margarito. “I was looking for the knockout. I wasn’t trying to box. I was standing there, take some, give some.” Cintron knows that he has the skill to beat a Margarito. “Now that I am with Ronnie Shields, he sees what I really have, the skills that I have. And I showed it in the Angulo fight. There is plenty more for me to show. If I would have fought the way I did against Angulo, there was no way that Margarito would have beaten me those two times.”

Cintron has learned from his losses against Margarito. “One thing I learned is you don’t take a fight if you’re not that well prepared for a guy like that. The attitude I had was a big mistake on my part.” And for those who believe that Cintron may have lost his confidence after those two fights, Cintron has an answer for them. “I definitely did not lose any. I know what I have. I know what it takes to be one of the best fighters out there. I showed it against Angulo. I know that I am way better than most fighters out there in my weight class.”

More recently, Cintron’s fight against Sergio Martinez created a stir in the boxing world. If you were watching, you will remember the confusion of the seventh round. The HBO commentators had basically declared the fight to be over after Cintron went down in the seventh, and Martinez seemed to be celebrating a victory at the end of the round. Some feel that the fight was allowed to continue unfairly because Cintron was arguing with the ref, but Cintron explained the situation. “Yeah, he dropped me in the seventh round, but I got up on time. I knew where I was. I was never hurt. I was just arguing with the ref, and that’s when everything got confused. The ref was waving, and I know for a fact I beat the count. And the ref is waving the fight off, but really what he said was that he was waving that the round was over.”

For those who still have their doubts, the fight can be found on YouTube. You can decide for yourself what the ref was thinking, but Cintron was getting up by the count of eight and up all the way by the count of nine. The fight was allowed to continue, and it ended in a draw. Although a draw is certainly better than a loss, Cintron is not happy with it. Of the outcome, Cintron said, “If I didn’t get dropped that round, I would have won the fight by split decision. But for me, I still won the fight enough. It was a really close fight. And to this day, it bothers me.” And Cintron said that he would like a rematch. As he said, “I made him [Martinez] look like just another average fighter.”

So why Shane Mosley? With Cotto and Pacquiao fighting in November, Mosley is the top Welterweight with no fight coming up. And since Cintron is not content to be just one of the top fighters in this weight class, he has to fight him to get where he wants. “Where I am at, I like it, but I know there is much more, and I am not going to stop.” So really the question is, why not Shane Mosley?

And if Shane Mosley is asking himself why Kermit Cintron, Cintron has an answer for him. “I know he’s looking for the big fights, but the big fights are on hold for him right now. Just fight me.” And Cintron is confident about what the outcome will be if they do fight. As he said, “It’s a bigger loss for him than for me when he loses if he decides to fight me.” It is not a matter of if for Cintron, but when. So Kermit Cintron just wants to leave this message for Shane Mosley, “Just step up to the plate and take the challenge. Let’s get it on.”