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HBO Boxing After Dark Recap

February 14, 2009

BankAtlantic Center-Sunrise, Florida

Interim WBC Super Welterweight (154 pounds) 12-Round Championship Match:

Sergio Martinez (44-1-1, 24 KO's, 153.25 pounds) (c) vs. Kermit Cintron (30-2, 27 KO's, 154 pounds)

Martinez won this championship in its last match when it wascreated via technical knockout at 3:00 of round 8 over Alex Bunema on October 4, 2008 on the same card that saw Angulo dominate Tsurkan. The match was stopped when the doctor ruled Bunema was unfit to continue in the corner after round 8 due to an accumulation of punches. Martinez entered the match lightly regarded, but showed amazing speed that prompted HBO's Jim Lampley to compare him to Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya in their prime at 154 pounds. The full recap of that match with a detailed explanation of why this title exists can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2009/2/27/recap-of-sergio-martinez-vs-alex-bunema.html Martinez is making his first defense of this championship.

The champion began his pro boxing career in 1997 in his native Argentina. There he faced a steady diet of opposition with very good records that were not very good boxers. Then he moved to Madrid, Spain, where he would continue that pattern.

However, there was one significant break from this pattern as Martinez honed his craft. As a rising prospect, Martinez' first match outside of Argentina was on the undercard ofthe Erik Morales vs. Marco Antonio Barrera PPV from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on February 19, 2000 against another opponent with a presumably built up record who was not that good. Unfortunately, the boxer from Tijuana, Mexico that was being fed to Martinez was a good boxer. "The Tijuana Tornado" Antonio Margarito gave Martinez the only loss of his career that night. Margarito stopped Martinez with a technical knockout 2:57 into round 7. It is unclear if Margarito had loaded hand wraps in that match, or if it would have mattered. Martinez has recently said it would not have mattered if Margarito was using loaded hand wraps in that match. At that point, Margarito was a far superior boxer to Martinez and did not need any help to beat the Argentinean.

Martinez is The Ring's number 6 contender at 154 pounds to their vacant championship in the weight class.

Cintron began his amateur combat sports career on the mat, as an amateur wrestler in Pennsylvania. The challenger turned down full athletic scholarships to Big 10 schools The Ohio State University and University of Wisconsin. Instead, Cintron went to junior college and took tenth at nationals his Freshman year. However, Cintron severely injured his knee after that. The knee injury forced him to end his wrestling career. Cintron then decided to box and turned pro with almost no amateur boxing experience.

Cintron is entering this match as a late replacement. Joe Greene was originally scheduled to challenge for the belt here, but developed a kidney stone and was forced to pull out on January 17.

Cintron's 2 losses have both come at the hands of the same boxer who holds the lone defeat over Martinez, Margarito. Cintron is now looking to have both of those losses overturned, because of Margarito's recent suspension for attempting to use loaded hand wraps in California. The first match was April 23, 2005 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. In that match, Cintron looked confused by Margarito from the onset of the match. Margarito dropped Cintron 4-times, before Cintron's corner threw in the towel to save their boxer 2:12 into round 5. Margarito's hand wraps were probably loaded for that match, since he was with his current trainer. Whether or not Margarito used loaded hand wraps probably would have had no effect on the outcome of that match. It would have still been Margarito via stoppage, but the length of the match may have changed. Margarito was much better then Cintron at that point in their careers. Cintron is appealing this outcome to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

The second match took place on April 12, 2008 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It would be very surprising if Margarito's hand wraps were not loaded for this match and here it could have made a difference. This time Cintron started fast winning the opening round. Margarito then began to fight dirty. He hit Cintron low several times and began to go hard after Cintron's body. Cintron employed some terrible defense, by bending forward and turtling. This allowed Margarito to hit Cintron on the back of the head. Finally, Margarito stopped Cintron with a left to the body that dropped the Pennsylvanian for a 10-count 1:57 into round 6. Margarito was probably still good enough to defeat Cintron without the aid of illegal hand wraps. However, no one will ever know. Cintron said after each match with Margarito that he had never faced a boxer who hit as hard as Margarito, which in hindsight makes sense. Cintron has appealed this decision to the New Jersey State Athletic Commission. A full recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2009/2/27/recap-of-kermit-cintron-vs-antonio-margarito-ii.html

Cintron's last match was a 12-round unanimous decision over Lovemore N'dou on November 15, 2008 at Vanderbilt University Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville, Tennessee.

Cintron is unranked by The Ring, and currently boxrec.com's number 7 ranked boxer in the world at 147 pounds.

At 29-years-old, Cintron is 4 years younger then the 33-year-old Martinez. Cintron has the height advantage standing 5' 11" tall, while Martinez stands 5' 10" tall. Martinez has the reach advantage with a 75" wingspan, compared to the 74" wingspan of Cintron. Both boxers have unofficially rehydrated to 164 pounds approaching match time. The champion will employ the southpaw stance and the challenger will box out of the orthodox stance.

Two of the judges keeping official score of this match from ringside are from Florida and the other is from New Jersey. The referee is Frank Santore.

Martinez appears to land more clean punches in winning round 1, 10-9. Lederman scores round 1 for the busier Cintron, 10-9. Cintron wins an uneventful round 2, 10-9. There has been an astonishing amount of holding and very little punching for 2 boxers that have seemed to be action style boxers. Therefore, the crowd turned on this match 1 minute into round 1, and have been half-heartedly booing the match ever since. (This is a quiet crowd that does not appear capable of more then half-hearted cheering or booing.) Cintron wins round 2 on the Lederman scorecard, 10-9. Round 3 is awful. Cintron landed a clean body shot that may have been good enough to earn him that dreadful round 3, 10-9. After 3 rounds, Cintron leads on my scorecard, 29-28. Lederman gives round 3 to Martinez, 10-9, but has Cintron ahead on his scorecard after 3 rounds, 29-28.

The champion wins a slightly better round 4, 10-9. Martinez takes round 4 on Lederman's scorecard, 10-9. With around 2:20 to go in round 5, Cintron is cut above his left eye. The cut was caused by a straight left hand from Martinez. The cut appears to be dripping blood directly into the challenger's eye. Cintron is constantly trying to wipe away the blood from the cut with his glove during round 5. Martinez wins round 5, 10-9. Through 5 rounds, Martinez has landed 42 of the 198 total punches he has thrown, for a 21% total connect percentage. Through 5 rounds, Cintron has landed 36 of the 266 total punches he has thrown, for a dismal 14% total connect percentage. Through 5 rounds, neither boxers' total connects have matched the number of power connects Angulo scored in round 3 on Rivera (51). The cut above Cintron's left eye is bad. It is underneath the eyebrow and moderately wide. It is not as bad as Angulo's cut was in the first match. However, this is the type of cut a veteran like Martinez could work on to get a stoppage victory. Martinez is more of a boxer, though and the male model's style is not geared toward working over cuts. To continue a night of bad refereeing, the official call is incorrect. The referee is ruling that the cut was caused by an accidental clash of heads. That means it would be a bad idea for Martinez to go after the cut, because a premature stoppage may cost him the title. Lederman scores round 5 for Martinez, 10-9. Martinez wins round 6, 10-9. After 6 rounds, Martinez leads on my scorecard, 58-56. The champion wins round 6 on Lederman's scorecard, 10-9, and is ahead in the match on the Lederman scorecard after 6 rounds, 58-56.

With 11 seconds to go in round 7, a straight left to the jaw draws an audible gasp from Cintron. The challenger then voluntarily backs up and takes a knee to recover as Martinez was charging in to follow up on the damaging blow. Cintron started to get up at 9, but did not beat the referee's count. The vanquished challenger is arguing that he was downed by a headbutt and the match should continue. However, the referee is signaling that the match is over. On replay it is clear, there was no clash of heads. It was a straight left hand that put Cintron down for the count. The referee is now saying that Cintron was up at 9 and the match is going to continue. The referee was waving that the round was over with the same motion that he signals a match is over. Apparently, the referee was using special hand signals to signal for Cintron to go back to his corner. Therefore, Martinez wins round 7 on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-8. This has given Cintron over 2 minutes to recover. Once the ring was cleared there was an additional delay to return the scorecards to the judges, because they had already been collected. The Florida commission is telling the HBO broadcasters that Cintron was saved by the bell. That is theoretically not possible, because under the unified rules of boxing a competitor cannot be saved from a knockout by the bell in any round. However, they seem to be largely making up the rules as they go along here, so it does not matter. On replay, the referee counts to 10 and says, "It's over." Then he waves his arms in the air in the normal fashion a referee would do to signal the end of a match. The referee then begins to point and walk Cintron back to his corner as would be customary to do for a boxer that has just been knocked out. It is pretty clear the referee intended to stop the match. Especially, since he made no effort to correct the mistake for a minute or so. It appears someone talked him into restarting the match in that minute. There is no other reasonable explanation. Martinez wins round 8, 10-9. Round 9 is Cintron's best round in a while, but it is not good enough to win the round. Martinez wins round 9, 10-9, and is ahead on my scorecard after 9 rounds, 88-82. Lederman scores round 9 for Martinez, 10-9, and also has the champion leading, 88-82, after 9 rounds.

With 51 seconds to go in round 10, the referee issues Martinez a stern warning for hitting behind the head. The referee says he will take a point from Martinez for the next infraction. Cintron lands some good power punches to take round 10, 10-9. The challenger takes round 10 on Lederman's scorecard, 10-9. Martinez wins round 11 by standing in front of Cintron and throwing combinations with impunity, 10-9. Lederman scores round 11 for Martinez, 10-9. With 2:07 to go in round 12, the referee calls time to deduct a point from Martinez for hitting behind the head. That was a terrible call. The punch that drew the point deduction hit Cintron behind the head, because Cintron ducked. Martinez aimed his punch at Cintron's face, but Cintron ducked the back of his head into the path of the punch creating the illegal blow. Therefore, that should not be a foul. With 1:38 to go in the last round, Cintron hits the canvas, again. The referee rules it was a slip. That is the correct call. However, the referee made the wrong hand gesture for it. He waved his arms vertically in the air, which is how a referee is supposed to signal the end of a match. The proper motion to signal no knockdown is for a referee to wave their arms horizontally, like they are calling a runner safe in baseball. This referee is grossly incompetent and appears to be maliciously trying to swing the match in favor of Cintron. The boxers resume their craft with 1:30 to go in the round. Martinez wins round 12, but with the ridiculous point deduction the round will be scored even 9-9. The champion wins the match on my scorecard, 116-110. The Lederman scorecard has round 12 the same, and Martinez winning the match by the same score.

The official decision courtesy of Michael Buffer is that the judges have scored this match: 116-110 for Martinez, 113-113, 113-113 the match is a majority draw. There was only 1 experienced judge on this panel, the one from New Jersey. He scored the match for Martinez. The 2 inexperienced Florida judges somehow scored this match a draw. Still, Martinez would have won even with the bad Florida judging, except for the terrible point deduction in round 12. On championship advantage the belt stays with, Sergio "Maravilla" Martinez. The draw moves Martinez to 44-1-2 with 24 wins coming by way of knockout.

The final punchstats make this outcome even more baffling. Martinez landed 151 of the 558 total punches he threw, for a 27% total connect percentage. The champion landed 98 of the 283 power punches he threw, for a 35% power connect percentage. Cintron landed 103 of the 534 total punches he threw, for a terrible 19% total connect percentage. The junior collegiate wrestler landed 52 of the 186 power punches he threw, for a 28% power connect percentage.

Martinez deserved to win this match. He was better in every way then Cintron. The only salvation in this outcome for him is that he keeps his title on the draw overcoming blatant and apparently purposeful incompetency. There will only be a rematch if Martinez is ordered by the WBC to face Cintron, again. It is unlikely many people will be willing to pay to see this match another time. Therefore, the next logical match is for Martinez to unify his portion of the WBC belt with Vernon Forrest's portion of the WBC belt. This performance got Martinez moved up in The Ring rankings at 154 pounds to be their number 5 contender in the weight class.

Cintron was mediocre in this match and fortunate to be given the draw. He would be best off returning to 147 pounds and rebuilding his career there. Cintron's reflexes appeared slow and he rarely appeared mentally in the match. A lot of this can be credited to Martinez. Despite this bad performance, it appears Cintron may headline the June 13 PPV from Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York against Miguel Cotto in his next match. (There is going to be a lot more on the scheduled Cotto PPV in June in the next recap.)

This was a bad event to watch. The boxing action was not entertaining. The second match featured what appeared to be refereeing with an intent to change the outcome of the match. The judging by the Florida officials was baffling. It added to this event being an embarrassment. Unless a viewer was looking for a show to get righteously indignant about, this was not worth watching. Even then it is probably outside the top 3 boxing events worthy of outrage within the last 6 months. That is a really sad comment about boxing.