By Matthew Hurley: According to his doctor, IBF welterweight champion Kermit Cintron will resume training in a week to ten days. In November Dr. R. Scott Clark diagnosed the fighter with severe ligament damage in his right hand after stopping Jesse Feliciano in the tenth round of what was a tougher-than-expected title defense. So tough in fact that a proposed unification bout with WBO champion Paul Williams was scrapped.
In an official statement released today Dr. Cook said, “This week Kermit will begin hitting the speed bag. He is up to speed where he should be and is healing well.”
Cintron, 29-1 with 27 KOs maintains that he injured the hand with the very first punch he threw in the first round. The bout became increasingly difficult for Cintron as the rugged but light-hitting Feliciano crowded him and oftentimes out punched the champion. Cintron seemed wary, even skittish, as the fight wore on and there was the slight whiff of a potential upset by the seventh round. Cintron, however, finally ended matters in the tenth stanza with a wicked barrage forcing the referee to stop the fight at 1:53 of the tenth round. The champion then fell to the canvas in agony, cradling his right hand.
There was speculation after the fight that the unification bout with Williams would be pushed back but in the weeks that followed Cintron and his camp seemed to wave off the fight altogether. In a recent statement Cintron named nearly every fighter in the welterweight range except Williams as a possible return opponent. Williams, who defeated Antonio Margarito for the WBO welterweight title, is incredulous as to Cintron’s decision to ignore him. His manager and trainer George Peterson, digging at Cintron’s current situation, recently said that, “Whenever I read the papers or (the) Internet, I see all these so-called welterweight champions saying they’ll fight anybody at anytime. But when it comes to fighting Paul, they get the hand flu or they want to take one or two warm up fights.”
Williams is scheduled to fight Carlos Quintana on February 9th in the first defense of his title.
As for Cintron’s next ring appearance, Main Events CEO Kathy Duva said, “We are in the early stages of finding a Kermit opponent for April.”