Although I watch virtually every fight televised on the major American networks and try to catch the big ones overseas online, it’s tough to get too excited by the mediocrities. Even though two evenly matched fighters can engage in entertaining theater it’s hard to place too much investment into an event without the highest stakes.
That said a few thoughts on HBO’s fights this weekend which featured three honest pros and one maybe will be.
* The undercard saw Kermit Cintron, former welterweight strapholder moving up to junior middleweight to take on HBO prospect Alfredo Angulo. I find there is an element of bad conscious now in watching Kermit Cintron fight. It’s a little uncomfortable and wrenching, like walking through the pound and seeing dogs half-mad from hunger and abuse.
Kermit was the house fighter a few years ago, the guy they were pushing as a potential something, but then he got his guts ripped out by Antonio Margarito, twice. The fights were brutal, debilitating, and unmanning. Margarito, one of the few fighters I find constitutionally unsympathetic, mowed Kermit down. He ate punches like they were nothing and left Cintron in a heap; there was no science or craft or strategy, just pure pressure till the pipe broke. And Cintron really shattered, curling up and literally crying in the ring, the kind of assault that makes a man rethink his choice of work.
And nothing he had done since indicated Cintron had been duly rehabilitated. I saw him fight on the undercard of a live show last year and though he won he was uninspired and lifeless. He challenged for a Junior Middleweight belt against the average Sergio Martinez and was both knocked out (which the ref blew) and decisioned. (which the judges blew with a draw)
Damaged goods; that’s what most, myself included, thought. And that’s where the bad conscious comes in; I can’t help but think about Margarito and those gloves when he fights now. He was never the most fluid or natural guy to begin with, the announcers always point out that he didn’t start boxing till he was nineteen, and maybe it’s just projection but it sure looks like it. I doubt he ever had much of a chance to be something special, but maybe he would have had a chance without the plaster. I don’t like talking about Margarito and the hand wraps, boxing is hard enough to rationalize without the unthinkable, but something in the retreating, panicked way he fights, like a dog flinching at a raised hand, really flavors the tragedy of the thing, like some far-fetched Hollywood script. I still can’t believe it happened, still can’t believe they loaded his gloves; it’s the worst thing a person can do in sport. What compares, putting a banana in the tailpipe of a racecar? There’s nothing.
So though the fight was scratch and sniff, a forgettable affair, there was something of the beauty of redemption in Cintron hanging on against the Margarito-light Angulo. Cintron didn’t fight that well, he used his superior speed to pepper the stuck-in-mud Angulo for the early rounds and in the late rounds he seemed to just barely be holding on, one blow thrown in anger away from crumbling. But he didn’t crumble, he survived, his face and style that of a desperate man, to the final bell, and earned his win.
Would he have held up better against the similarly limited Margarito without the perhaps illegal hand wraps? To be honest, I don’t think so. But there is no way to know, and that’s got to be galling to him. It’s a brave man who steps into the ring, particularly one who is already seemingly cracked and unwhole. I don’t think Cintron will ever beat a world-class fighter - I don’t think he did Saturday – but there was something a little touching to know that while the broken may not fully heal, it can be mended.
* It wasn't only the studded dog collar that made Angulo look like a Mexican sex freak. It was the dog collar plus the thin porn moustache. Not a good look, Alfredo. And no, I certainly wouldn't say it to his face.
* In the main event rising Welterweight titlist Andre Berto fought junior welterweight belt holder Juan Urango. I try not to be too negative on guys who beat adequate opposition by clear margins, but there wasn’t much to get excited about here. Berto has some of best handspeed in the sport, and it was very apparent against the strong but slow Urango.
Berto landed at will but held just as much, and it was unclear exactly why. Berto had no problem fighting at distance, and his superior speed made it easy to stay there, but he frequently and seemingly purposefully dove in and held, making the fight virtually unwatchable.
My fighting hero James Toney says something like, (insert virtually unintelligible guttural mutterings) “All these chumps was taught to fight, I was born to fight.” I can’t help feeling a little like that about Berto, he’s got all the gifts, all the tools, but something seems missing, that special inspiration separating a good fighter from a great one. Like Cintron there seems to be a hitch in the proceedings that keeps him in the atmosphere, slightly, but definitively below the sainted heroes; Mayweathers, and Marquezes and Pacquiaos and Mosleys. I may be wrong, a curmudgeon unwilling to acknowledge the new; Berto is young, strong, and fast, but I wonder if what James is talking about can ever be learned.
*Not to kill the guys, because it's borderline entertaining, but the announcing on the B.A.D. crew has entered into car-wreck territory. Starting next time I’m beginning a new feature tentatively called, “The Wisdom of Lennox Lewis.” And don’t worry, Max Kellerman will get his due as well.
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