By Mark Vester
In an unexpected war of attrition, Kermit Cintron (29-1, 27KOs) stopped Jesse Feliciano (15-6-3, 9KOs) in the tenth-round to retain his IBF welterweight title at the Staples Center in California. The bout took place on the undercard to Fernando Vargas-Ricardo Mayorga.
Feliciano showed an abundance of heart by standing his ground and taking some deadly power punches to the chin and body. The fight appeared to be in the books after Cintron rocked him with hard rights in the first round, or so we thought. At the start of the second, he stayed in Cintron’s chest and traded power punches with the champion for the rest of the fight.
Cintron caught him with some thunderous punches and Feliciano took them and kept moving forward with his own counters. In the ninth-round, Feliciano was feeling so much confidence that he actually walked Cintron back to his corner.
In the tenth, a right hand started the damage and some deadly combinations followed to have Feliciano out on his feet as the referee stopped the action.
Following the stoppage, Cintron dropped on the mat in pain, favoring the right hand. Cintron said that he felt a crack in his right hand in the very first round. Cintron has a unification bout scheduled against WBO champion Paul Williams on Feb. 2, the extent of Cintron’s injury is unknown.
