WELTERWEIGHTS TAKE CENTER STAGE IN ATLANTIC CITY

By Michael Swann

HBO World Championship Boxing highlights the welterweights on Saturday night at 10 p.m. ET/ 7 p.m. PT, live from Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. In the main event, Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto, 31-0 (25), meets Alfonso Gomez, 18-3-2 (8), of ““The Contender” fame, while in the co-feature Antonio Margarito, 35-5 (25), meets Kermit Cintron, 29-1 (27), in a rematch of their 2005 fight.

Because of the strength of the co-feature, this stacks up to be a terrific card. However, the single weak link in the group is Gomez, who aside from his time on the reality show is best known for his seventh round TKO of a shot Arturo Gatti last July, sending Gatti to retirement. He then won a 10 round decision over veteran Ben Tackie in October, the first time in his career that he has gone 10 rounds. In fact, the Gatti fight was his first contest scheduled for 10.

The fact of the matter is that Gomez is a “C” fighter on his best day, and is grossly overrated on the strength of “The Contender” and the Gatti victory. Tackie, at 34, has now lost three straight and four of his last six. The rest of Alfonso’s resume simply doesn’t measure up to a true contender, only a Contender.

Fighters from the reality show benefit from the exposure and with their increased marketability seem to crop up regularly on TV fights. However, you’ll notice that none of them has come even remotely close to winning a belt after the reality show, so it’s hard to take them too seriously.

Then to make matters worse, Gomez has to face Cotto, a human wrecking ball. Cotto has beaten Shane Mosley, Zab Judah, Oktay Urkal and Carlos Quintana in less than a year and a half as a welterweight. Previously at 140 he defeated the likes of Paullie Malignaggi, Ricardo Torres, DeMarcus Corley, Randall Bailey, Lovemore N’dou, Carlos Maussa and others. So he deserves a soft touch for a change, and Gomez fits the bill.

Cotto is probably the premier body puncher in the game today. At the very least, he has to be considered the second best welterweight in the sport, and only time will tell if Floyd Mayweather Jr. will someday decide if it’s safe to get into the ring with Miguel.

Listed at 5’9”, Gomez has a two inch height advantage, which will probably be irrelevant after the first good body shot. As far as I can see there’s not one single competitive advantage that could go to Alfonso.

It’’s just a complete mismatch, which is why Cotto is a 12-1 favorite. The only way that Gomez could have less of a chance would be if he hired Mark Penn to map out his strategy.

I’’m picking Cotto by KO, no later than round five.

Now the Margarito-Cintron rematch is another matter. Kermit was stopped by the feared Margarito in five rounds three years ago, but some factors have changed. Cintron added the legendary Manny Steward to his corner since their first encounter.

While it’s true that Manny cannot get into the ring with him, what he adds in terms of preparation, strategy and motivation cannot be underestimated. His duty is clear -- convince Cintron that he can beat the man who dropped him four times and knocked him out.

In that first fight, Cintron came out of a clinch with an ugly cut over his right eye in the third and seemingly lost all focus afterward. Kermit was floored twice in the fourth, and went down twice more in round five before it was stopped.

So far, Cintron has gone 5-0 with five stops since the Margarito loss, winning the IBF title along the way. In his last fight, against journeyman Jesse Feliciano, Kermit suffered a ligament injury to his right hand in round one, yet fought on under a surprisingly aggressive attack by Feliciano.

Cintron finally prevailed with a 10th round TKO, but right after his victory was announced he fell to the floor writhing in pain as if he had been shot. There was considerable controversy after the fact that Kermit may have embellished the pain from the injury, for various reasons. You would have thought that he had claimed to have been pinned down by sniper fire in Bosnia.

As for Margarito, he remains one of boxing’s most avoided fighters. Both fighters are 5’11”, but the perception is that Tony is the larger, stronger, tougher man, who has already knocked out Cintron once. Consequently, Tony is the 3-1 favorite.

Most importantly I would think, while Cintron has excelled since their first encounter, he still has to face that moment of truth when he looks across the ring and sees Tony in his corner and recalls that the last time he saw him in a ring he was looking up at him.

Cintron knows that Margarito is responsible for the only blemish on his record and it appears that, despite that brutal loss that he hand picked Margarito. Kermit was originally scheduled to face Paul Williams in February but when his recovery postponed that fight, he chose to take on Margarito in his return from injury rather than work out another date with Williams or take a tune up bout.

Margarito is 3-1 (2) since the Cintron fight, including a 12 round decision over Joshua Clottey and two first round TKO’s over Manuel Gomez and, in his last fight, Golden Johnson.

His defeat was to Williams when he got off to a slow start and dug an early hole in the early rounds before staging a courageous rally down the stretch that fell short.

Antonio may well be the most relentless and determined fighter in the division, and he has never been stopped. Kermit probably has the best right hand power at 147 and will be motivated by the opportunity for revenge.

If Cintron can make Margarito feel his power early, he can win. It’s really that simple because if he tags Tony and nothing happens it’ll be an uphill battle to say the least.

I’’m going with Margarito to win by TKO, around the 10th round in what might be the best fight on the second best card this week.