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Kermit Cintron never saw it coming.
When you can knock someone senseless with the flick of your wrist, you can get that feeling of invincibility. Add in the fact that you had only put on boxing gloves for the first time six years prior to your first big pay-per-view bout, and you can have the sense that you can handle anything that happens between those ropes. Handling the various curveballs that life hands you may be another matter, but when that bell rings, you win. It’s what you do; it’s what you did 24 previous times and no one ever beat you.
It’s intoxicating. It’s a feeling most of us will never experience, and if Cintron never wins another fight, it’s something you can never take away.
But like I said, he never saw it coming. He never saw Antonio Margarito and his relentless fists breaking him down in a way he had never experienced. Only two years separated the two welterweights chronologically, but in experience, the gap was immeasurable.
On April 23, 2005, Kermit Cintron fell apart.
But now he’s back together and ready to return.
“I hate losing,” said Cintron. “It looks ugly having a loss on my record. You’ve got guys that lose early in their careers and they come back. It was one fight, and I lost to - in my opinion - the best welterweight in the world. So I just have to come back and continue winning, and I’ll be back on top again.”
All fighters lose. It’s a part of the game, and back when boxing was a major sport in this country, a loss wasn’t a scarlet letter; it was one of a few things – a learning experience for a fighter on the rise, a defeat against a quality opponent, or simply, a bad night.
Cintron had all three against the WBO champion, yet what struck people was not that the 25-year-old Puerto Rican lost against Margarito, but how he lost – not going down in a blaze of glory, but with a whimper. It looked like everything Cintron had learned in his previous 24 fights disappeared in 14 minutes and 12 seconds of fight. Amid all this chaos, Cintron won a round on all three scorecards and was being told all the right things by trainer Marshall Kauffman in between rounds, but something was lost in translation that night, something that left the fighter on his own island, more alone than he had ever been. It was something Kauffman wasn’t prepared to experience from his fighter.
“He was off nine months, he had two hand surgeries, and I think in the back of his mind he started to doubt himself,” said Kauffman. “And with everything else that went on, I don’t think he listened to a word I said.”
“Kermit, start sliding to your right,” shouted Kauffman between rounds.
“He wouldn’t do it.”
“Kermit, drop a straight right hand,” Kauffman pleaded.
“He wanted to put a jab out there.”
“It was just totally off,” he continues. “In his 24 fights prior to the Margarito fight, when I said jump, it was almost like he said ‘how high?’ When I said throw a jab, he threw a jab. When I said throw a right hand, he threw a right hand. And he prepared himself mentally and physically for those fights. This fight, he wasn’t prepared mentally.”
Cintron admits that he wasn’t the ideal student that night, and also alludes to personal issues, both within and outside his camp, that added to his lack of focus that night. And before you chalk this up to the usual excuse list dished out by fighters on the losing end in a big fight, Cintron explains what those issues did to him on fight night.
“You’re not there,” he said. “You’re physically there, but mentally I wasn’t there.”
Dismiss it if you choose, but at this level of the game, a lack of mental focus can be fatal. Add in the fact that Cintron had never been in a fight of this magnitude, and you’ve got a disaster waiting to happen. So was it too much, too soon?
“He saw Margarito fight twice in person, and he thought for sure, like I did, like Joe Pastore did, that he could beat Margarito, without a doubt, based on the Kermit Cintron that we knew,” said Kauffman.
But by the end of the first round, you just knew that Cintron was not going to win the fight. By round three, Cintron was cut, and it was only going to get worse. Margarito, usually a slower starter, was like a shark smelling blood as he stalked and ripped Cintron with combinations to the head and body. It was a veteran showing the rookie how it’s done in the course of a painful clinic.
“Margarito did have more experience than I do, there’s no doubt about that,” said Cintron. “I started fighting at the age of 19 and he was already a pro at 15. So he definitely had more experience than I did, but I know that if I was 100% focused coming into that fight, I know I could have defeated him that night.”
Four knockdowns later, the fight was over, as Kauffman rescued his charge from more punishment in the fifth round.
Then the real fight began, as Cintron looked to pick up the pieces from a loss that had obliterated all the good things he had done in his previous time in the ring. It wasn’t going to be like starting over with a clean 0-0 record; it was going to be starting over with a record of 0-1. Even Kauffman had his doubts about whether his fighter could make a return from such a devastating defeat.
“Immediately after the fight, yeah, because I had never seen that before,” he admitted. “There was a slight doubt immediately after the fight but after I saw his hunger to get back into the gym, all the doubts went out.”
Kermit Cintron never saw it coming.
When you can knock someone senseless with the flick of your wrist, you can get that feeling of invincibility. Add in the fact that you had only put on boxing gloves for the first time six years prior to your first big pay-per-view bout, and you can have the sense that you can handle anything that happens between those ropes. Handling the various curveballs that life hands you may be another matter, but when that bell rings, you win. It’s what you do; it’s what you did 24 previous times and no one ever beat you.
It’s intoxicating. It’s a feeling most of us will never experience, and if Cintron never wins another fight, it’s something you can never take away.
But like I said, he never saw it coming. He never saw Antonio Margarito and his relentless fists breaking him down in a way he had never experienced. Only two years separated the two welterweights chronologically, but in experience, the gap was immeasurable.
On April 23, 2005, Kermit Cintron fell apart.
But now he’s back together and ready to return.
“I hate losing,” said Cintron. “It looks ugly having a loss on my record. You’ve got guys that lose early in their careers and they come back. It was one fight, and I lost to - in my opinion - the best welterweight in the world. So I just have to come back and continue winning, and I’ll be back on top again.”
All fighters lose. It’s a part of the game, and back when boxing was a major sport in this country, a loss wasn’t a scarlet letter; it was one of a few things – a learning experience for a fighter on the rise, a defeat against a quality opponent, or simply, a bad night.
Cintron had all three against the WBO champion, yet what struck people was not that the 25-year-old Puerto Rican lost against Margarito, but how he lost – not going down in a blaze of glory, but with a whimper. It looked like everything Cintron had learned in his previous 24 fights disappeared in 14 minutes and 12 seconds of fight. Amid all this chaos, Cintron won a round on all three scorecards and was being told all the right things by trainer Marshall Kauffman in between rounds, but something was lost in translation that night, something that left the fighter on his own island, more alone than he had ever been. It was something Kauffman wasn’t prepared to experience from his fighter.
“He was off nine months, he had two hand surgeries, and I think in the back of his mind he started to doubt himself,” said Kauffman. “And with everything else that went on, I don’t think he listened to a word I said.”
“Kermit, start sliding to your right,” shouted Kauffman between rounds.
“He wouldn’t do it.”
“Kermit, drop a straight right hand,” Kauffman pleaded.
“He wanted to put a jab out there.”
“It was just totally off,” he continues. “In his 24 fights prior to the Margarito fight, when I said jump, it was almost like he said ‘how high?’ When I said throw a jab, he threw a jab. When I said throw a right hand, he threw a right hand. And he prepared himself mentally and physically for those fights. This fight, he wasn’t prepared mentally.”
Cintron admits that he wasn’t the ideal student that night, and also alludes to personal issues, both within and outside his camp, that added to his lack of focus that night. And before you chalk this up to the usual excuse list dished out by fighters on the losing end in a big fight, Cintron explains what those issues did to him on fight night.
“You’re not there,” he said. “You’re physically there, but mentally I wasn’t there.”
Dismiss it if you choose, but at this level of the game, a lack of mental focus can be fatal. Add in the fact that Cintron had never been in a fight of this magnitude, and you’ve got a disaster waiting to happen. So was it too much, too soon?
“He saw Margarito fight twice in person, and he thought for sure, like I did, like Joe Pastore did, that he could beat Margarito, without a doubt, based on the Kermit Cintron that we knew,” said Kauffman.
But by the end of the first round, you just knew that Cintron was not going to win the fight. By round three, Cintron was cut, and it was only going to get worse. Margarito, usually a slower starter, was like a shark smelling blood as he stalked and ripped Cintron with combinations to the head and body. It was a veteran showing the rookie how it’s done in the course of a painful clinic.
“Margarito did have more experience than I do, there’s no doubt about that,” said Cintron. “I started fighting at the age of 19 and he was already a pro at 15. So he definitely had more experience than I did, but I know that if I was 100% focused coming into that fight, I know I could have defeated him that night.”
Four knockdowns later, the fight was over, as Kauffman rescued his charge from more punishment in the fifth round.
Then the real fight began, as Cintron looked to pick up the pieces from a loss that had obliterated all the good things he had done in his previous time in the ring. It wasn’t going to be like starting over with a clean 0-0 record; it was going to be starting over with a record of 0-1. Even Kauffman had his doubts about whether his fighter could make a return from such a devastating defeat.
“Immediately after the fight, yeah, because I had never seen that before,” he admitted. “There was a slight doubt immediately after the fight but after I saw his hunger to get back into the gym, all the doubts went out.”
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