"Kermit Cintron: Impressive in and out of the ring"

Kermit Cintron: Impressive in and out of the ring By Robert Morales Kermit Cintron on Tuesday was about to sit down with reporters at the Sheraton Hotel in Los Angeles to discuss his world welterweight title defense against Jesse Feliciano on Friday at Staples Center. (Showtime pay-per-view will televise). Yours truly was unable to attend, so good friend and public relations guy John “Bad-Hip” Beyrooty hooked us up on the telephone. Tell you what, Cintron is an impressive young man. He lost his mother to cancer when he was 8, moved with his father from their native Puerto Rico to Pennsylvania, then Cintron’s father died five years later from a heart ailment. Cintron was 13, and both parents were gone. Cintron and his father had been living with Cintron’s aunt and uncle when his fathe passed, so Cintron at least had family to care for him, rather than having to go to a foster home. Even so, many teens in this situation would have been compelled to go out and lead a crazy life because, after all, how fair can life be if a 13-year-old has lost both parents? Cintron (28-1, 26 KOs) took the opposite road, and it is now paying large dividends. “Some people would use those excuses as why they drink, why they use drugs, why they're always in trouble, why they're always in jail, why they're always on the streets looking for trouble,” said Cintron, who lived in the Philadelphia area. “I took it as ... things happen for a reason and I really do believe in that. Growing up with my uncle and my aunt, I was a church boy. You know, stay in church, play my sports and that's pretty much it for me, really.” At a time when most kids have their parents to root them on in high school, Cintron did not. As he explained his feelings over the telephone, it was easy to tell that, even now, at 28, he still longs for that. “It was hard,” he said. “When you lose your parents, they're not there for you. They don't see what you're doing. When I started wrestling, playing football, running track, all the sports that I played, you always look to the side to the audience to see your parents. It was hard. At times, it was really hard. But at the same time I had my uncle Benjamin Serrano and my aunt Evelyn as well as my grandma being there for me, which, they helped out a lot.” Cintron said that everything he had to endure as a result of the loss of his parents has added strength to his emotional constitution. It no doubt helped him come back from his one loss, a fifth-round technical knockout at the hands of Antonio Margarito in April 2005 in Las Vegas. Cintron entered the fight having had three surgeries on his right hand – two back-to-back – during which little holes were drilled in the bone to revive nerves related to a dying middle knuckle. He had not fought in nine months. He was therefore able to take some solace in knowing that he was not 100 percent and that he trained only four weeks for a monster like Margarito. Still, it was his first shot at a world title, and a decided defeat such as the one he offered could have damaged his psyche. But whereas that might have done such a number on others, Cintron got right back at it. Five months after the setback to Margarito, Cintron stopped a mediocre Francisco Javier Parra in the third round of a scheduled eight-round fight. Cintron then decided to make a career move that appears to have been solid – he changed trainers and hired Hall of Famer Emanuel Steward. Cintron subsequently stopped David Estrada in the 10th round of an elimination fight, he stopped Mark Suarez in the sixth round to win the vacant welterweight title and then he came up with a sensational second-round knockout of tough Walter Matthysse in July in Atlantic City. It was Cintron’s first title defense. “I just thought it was time for me to move on to better things and have a lot better trainer if I want to get to the next level and win world titles,” Cintron said. And since Cintron is obviously a very intelligent young man, he is smart enough to listen to Steward. “I've just learned a little bit of everything so far,” Cintron said. “I'm still learning. I learned to box more, throw better combinations, use my jab more, use my legs more, my defense.” Cintron and Steward were introduced by a former attorney of Cintron’s.“I wasn’t that impressed with Kermit before I started working with him,” Steward said. “But we began training and I started noticing a lot of talent and boxing ability. We started developing his left hand, but I think his right hand is the strongest pound-for-pound I have ever seen. It is as strong as Wladimir Klitschko’s, which is amazing. I realized he has the ability to be an amazing fighter.” Steward is not the only important figure in the sport to recently sing the praises of Cintron. During fight week for the Nov. 10 Miguel Cotto-“Sugar” Shane Mosley welterweight title fight in New York City, promoter Bob Arum said that he believes Paul Williams will no longer be a factor in the welterweight division once he tangles with Cintron. Williams holds one of the belts and though that fight is being discussed, Cintron said it is not a done deal. Either way, Cintron does seem to have earned some respect “It does make me feel good about an old promoter like Bob Arum talking about me that way,” Cintron said. “But this is something that, you put that all aside and continue and stay focused on your hard work. You continue training hard, continue to improve to get better. The biggest thing is staying focused. And that's what I've been doing.” And that focus, Cintron said, is on Feliciano. It’s not on Margarito, though he does want another shot at the former champion who lost his belt to the aforementioned Williams. It’s not on unifying the division, another one of his goals. “I gotta stay focused on the Jesse Feliciano fight,” Cintron said. “I think that the Feliciano fight is a dangerous fight for me right now just because of the fact that he's 15 wins with 5 losses. I think … a fighter with a record like that usually doesn't have an opportunity to fight for a world title. And I'm sure he's trained as hard as he can. And he's hungry and he's going to try and take that belt away from me. So I'm definitely focused on this fight before I talk about anything else for the future.” Indeed, Feliciano has nothing to lose. How he got this title shot with a record of 15-5-3 with nine knockouts is of no consequence. He has it, and he will likely do anything to make the best of it. “Cintron is not unbeatable,” said Las Vegas’ Feliciano, whose only telling victory came in his last fight, an eighth-round technical knockout of Delvin Rodriguez in March. “He is a great athlete and a tough opponent. I think I have to stop him. I think they made a huge mistake in picking me as an opponent. I am starving for that … belt. I’ve been starving for a long time.” Perhaps. But not only is Cintron the more physically talented fighter, it would be difficult to find anyone with more mettle than that accrued by Cintron during the most trying of younger times. Hey Matt marvelous, does that sound like a guy with a bad attitude and is full of himself?