By Ryan Burton
BoxingScene.com spoke to former welterweight champion Kermit Cintron on a variety of topics and the Puerto Rican had plenty to say about Andre Berto, Antonio Margarito and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Most of Cintron's venom was directed at WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto. Cintron and Berto share the same promoter in Lou DiBella. The New York based promoter recently appeared on BoxingScene campaigning for Berto to get a shot at pound for pound king Manny Pacquiao. Cintron doesn't think Berto is ready for such a step up in competition - "Berto fights C and B- level fighters. How is he going to fight a guy like Pacquiao? He would get blown out."
In the same story DiBella said that Berto is willing to fight anybody. "I have sat down with Berto three times and tried to make a fight with him. I thought they said would fight anybody? If thgats true then he should be fighting me at the MGM on Saturday and not the guy he is fighting (Freddy Hernandez)."
Cintron is hoping to get back in the ring early in 2011. He was the frontrunner to fight fellow Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto in December until Cotto decided to sit the rest of the year out.
Now it appears that Antonio Margarito and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. are the favorites to next face the WBA 154 pound champion. Cintron doesn't see how either are deserving of a shot at Cotto.
"Chavez really? Chavez and Berto should fight each other. The winner graduates from being a C level fighter up to a B level fighter."
When asked for his thoughts on Pacquiao's one sided beat down of Antonio Margarito, Cintron told BoxingScene, "I didn't watch the fight. I was out bowling with my friends but I was getting updated by texts."
Margarito handed Cintron his only two pro defeats but there is some question to the legitimacy of those victories after a plaster like substance was found in Margarito's handwraps prior to his January 2009 fight versus Shane Mosley.
"After everything that happened with the handwraps I am glad he got his ass beat like that. He had it coming."
Cintron finished up our conversation by saying, "I still want Berto. I will fight him at 147 for his belt or if he is afraid of losing his belt we can fight at 149 or 150 pounds so that way after I beat him he can still keep his belt."
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