Friday Night Sees The Return Of Welterweight Kermit Cintron

It has been more than two years since Kermit Cintron (35-5-2) entered the ring, but this coming Friday, May 6th, Cintron laces up the gloves once again as he faces veteran Eduardo Flores (23-20-3) in a 6 round bout on Marshall Kauffman’s show at Philadelphia’s 2300 Arena.

Cintron, now 36 years old, is no stranger to the top shelf of boxing’s welterweight division. Back in October of 2006 he grabbed the IBF’s world title and he successfully defended the belt twice before losing it to Antonio Margarito in April of 2008. Cintron’s last moment in boxing’s limelight came in November of 2011 when he was stopped by Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in what goes down as the last time the Mexican superstar has fought in Mexico.

Cintron, who was born in Puerto Rico, is back in central Pennsylvania re-united with trainer Joe Pastore, and this match is a tune-up to see how his body reacts after the long layoff. Cintron goes through great pains to label the time off a layoff and not a retirement. A final run at the top is the goal for Cintron.

Cintron’s trainer Pastore talked about the comeback, saying that Cintron took a long layoff to have a series of hand surgeries to repair a longstanding problem that dated back to his amateur days. The injured knuckles of his right hand were something that always affected Cintron during his pro career and the damage got progressively worse.

Pastore told “Boxing with the Truth” in a July of 2015 interview that “if Kermit is healthy and his hand is fine, I would put him in with anybody in the world at 154 or 147 lbs.”

For this fight, Cintron will be fighting at 154 lbs and he has set a goal of working his way back to the welterweight limit of 147 lbs within the next two fights. Cintron was labelled a prospect early in his career and had amassed 28 knockouts by 2009. In this one he will be looking to shake off the ring rust and then he will be looking to throw his name in the hat for the big fights.

Will Cintron have anything left for another run at the lucrative top shelf of the welterweight division? We may get some answers this Friday.