By CompuBox
Saturday night’s rematch between Antonio Margarito and Kermit Cintron was a completely different fight in terms of action, but the result was ultimately the same as Cintron crumbled under the weight of "The Tijuana Tornado’s" pressure – as well as a perfectly-placed hook to the body. With the sixth-round KO victory, the new IBF champion regained his place in boxing’s most exciting and competitive weight class and ostensibly earned a unification fight against WBA kingpin and pound-for-pound entrant Miguel Cotto in July.
Margarito seized his second welterweight title belt the way he has won most of his fights in recent years – with relentless, spirit-sapping volume punching. Over the five completed rounds, Margarito averaged 113 punches – including a 133-punch deluge in round two – while Cintron averaged a more than respectable 81 over the same stretch (also peaking in round two with 85). But while most volume punchers sacrifice accuracy for numbers, such was not the case Saturday night as Margarito landed 42 percent of his punches overall (257 of 611) and 46 percent of his power punches (207 of 451).
Conversely, Cintron connected on 30 percent of his shots overall (136 of 451) and while he landed 43 percent of his power punches (89 of 209) he threw just two more than Margarito landed. That canyon-esque gap in power punch effectiveness proved to be the difference between victor and vanquished.
Like the first fight, the jab was of little consequence for either man, especially after the first round that saw both connect on 16 of their 48 attempts. From the second round onward, Margarito landed 34 of 112 jabs (30 percent) and Cintron was just 31 of 194 (16 percent). Once Margarito realized he could wage war on the inside – and Cintron couldn’t stop him from doing so – the Mexican moved inside and hammered away with impunity. From rounds two through the truncated sixth, Margarito out-landed Cintron 215-105 overall (an average of 22 more connects per round) and 181-74 in power punches (an average of 21 additional connects per round).
To get an idea of how high-impact Margarito-Cintron II was, consider that the typical welterweight averages 59 punches and 20 connects overall. In Saturday’s fight, Cintron – who ended up losing – averaged 23 of 75 while Margarito was an astonishing 43 of 102. In terms of power punches the typical welterweight is 13 of 34, but Cintron averaged 15 of 35 and Margarito was an incredible 35 of 75. His round-by-round power connect totals of 26, 48, 48, 37, and 40 over the first five rounds almost makes one want to cringe and his 109 power attempts in round two and 90 more in round three established the foundation for Cintron’s eventual destruction.
Cintron sought to exorcise the ghosts of the past, and while his effort might have been good enough to beat most other welterweights it wasn’t sufficient to upend a 30-year-old Mexican who is now setting his sights on another Puerto Rican power puncher – Cotto.
