Kermit Cintron and Joe Calzaghe are in different weight classes and will never fight each other, but they have two things in common: Their last names start with a ‘C’ and they are both on the brink of perhaps their biggest fight.|
Cintron will be defending his welterweight world championship against Antonio Margarito on April 12 in Atlantic City. He will be trying to retain his title as well as avenge the only defeat of his career. A victory would earn him a shot at fellow welterweight champion Miguel Cotto and his biggest payday should Cotto get past Alfonso Gomez in the main event.
Calzaghe will be challenging Bernard Hopkins for his light heavyweight championship on April 19 in Las Vegas. Calzaghe not only has the task of dethroning the modern-day marvel that is the 43-year-old Hopkins, he will be trying to do it while fighting in the U.S. for the first time in his own wonderful career. HBO will televise both fights.
The story on Cintron and his first fight against Margarito in April 2005 has been well-chronicled. He was coming off surgery on his right hand, had not fought for nine months and was only able to use his right hand for two weeks during a brief four-week training camp.
In short, it was “the wrong time” for him to challenge a killer like Margarito for his belt, and Cintron was stopped in the fifth round at an outdoor venue at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
But lots has happened in the three years since Margarito put what is still the only blemish on Cintron’s record of 29-1 with 27 knockouts. Two fights later Cintron stopped David Estrada in the 10th round in a title elimination bout. Cintron then stopped Mark Suarez in the sixth to win the vacant title, which he has defended twice.
Margarito, meanwhile, made two subsequent defenses in 2006 and then lost his belt last July when he was defeated by Paul Williams via decision at Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. We reached Cintron on Friday by telephone. He seemed in good spirits 15 days before a fight he deemed a must win.
“Without beating Margarito, there’s no career,” he said. “I’m ready to fight Margarito on April 12. I’m going to put everything in the ring to make sure I’m going to come out of there victorious.” OK, so in one breath Cintron said this is a make or break fight for him. In the next, he said he is not feeling the heat. “There’s no pressure,” he said. “The pressure’s on Margarito, not me. I’m just training, I’m relaxed. I have no worries.”
Yes, he does. Margarito is his worry. He might have the psychological edge because of what he did to Cintron the first time. He is also a former champion hungry to again reached the promised land after somewhat surprisingly being evicted by Williams. Then again, Cintron is now healthy and he is in the midst of a full-length training camp. He survived the knockout by Margarito (35-5, 25 KOs) to not only fight another day, but to become world champion. In his mind, the setback added muscle to his emotional constitution.
“I have more experience and I’m more mature,” Cintron, 28, said.
One more thing. “Just better skills, man,” Cintron said. “I believe I have better skills than he does.”
Then there’s Calzaghe. Tell you what, this is one engaging guy. He entertained reporters on a conference call Tuesday and he really did keep everyone entertained.
At one point Calzaghe talked about the incident with Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs) in the media center at MGM Grand in Las Vegas the weekend Ricky Hatton was stopped by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December. In regards to that well-publicized “white boy stuff and all that crap,” Calzaghe said he was not offended in the least.
“I have skin as thick as a rhino,” he said.
Calzaghe also said that he “got a buzz” from the events of that weekend, from that nose-to-nose beef with Hopkins to the electricity created by the thousands of British fans that followed England’s Hatton across the pond. Calzaghe said his fans from Wales are going to afford him that same support.
“There are people coming to this fight who don’t even come to my fights in Cardiff (Wales),” Calzaghe said, laughing.
“It’s going to be pressure, but I love pressure. That’s when I perform, when I’ve got pressure.”
However, again, this is Calzaghe’s first fight in the U.S. One reporter apparently didn’t understand the enormity of that by telling Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs) he didn’t know what all the fuss about him fighting in the U.S. was about. After all, the reporter said, Americans can watch Calzaghe on television.
Hello, McFly. Anybody home? That is not the issue. The thing is if a fighter has been fighting in or near his backyard his entire career – 42 of Calzaghe’s 44 fights have been in the United Kingdom, one in Germany and one in Denmark – then he has been taking care of business in the ultimate comfort zone. Eleven of his 22 super middleweight title fights were in Wales.
Like it or not, that makes things easier for a fighter. That’s not to mention that many of his opponents in those 22 title bouts are fighters that most Americans have never heard of. We’re talking guys like Evans Ashira, Tocker Pudwill, Rick Thornberry and David Staire, to name a few.
Not that those fighters were absolute bums. And the feeling here is that Calzaghe – who does have solid wins over American Jeff Lacy and Dane Mikkel Kessler in England and Wales, respectively – is a terrific fighter with a good chance of beating
Hopkins. But the bottom line is, if Calzaghe beats Hopkins in America, that will enhance his legacy. Even he knows that.
“Every fighter wants recognition not just from his own people, but from all fans, the whole world,” said Calzaghe, 36. “So of course it is important for me to get fans in America and be recognized. It’s another test for me to come over to America
and show fans a great fighter from Wales.”