Kermit Cintron vs Paul Williams predictions?

Its going to be a great fight.

Cintrons lost to Margorito twice. If you look at those fights, paticuarly the 2nd, Margorito constantly went to the body of the skinny fighter to wear him down. He got on the inside and ripped away with thise huge hooks. However we have to consider 3 things about these fights;

1) Was Margorito wearing the dodgy plaster in his gloves.
2) It must have been tough for Cintron to make Welterweight
3) Cintron has now moved trainers. He is working with the superb Ronnie Shields.

Shields has completley changed Cintrons style. His used to be a KO artist. He is now a defensive minded fighter who counter punches. He uses his world class jab and foot speed to keep the distance between him and his opponents. He shoots that jab out extremly quick and it can hurt a fighter. He has improves his defence 100%. His head movement is great. Using his hab and head movement, he now stays on the outside well out of the punching range of his opponent.

His fight agaisnt Alfredo Angulo, undefeated at the time and since, was a masterclass from fighter and trainer. A fantastic Boxing clinic of how any tall boxer should fight. Angulo who is a busy fighter like Williams, never got close to Cintron to cause problems. Due to Cintrons head movement, he could not get him there, and due to Cintron using his jab, he was unable to have much success to the body. When he did get to the body, Cintron would just lean in with his head and clinch. When Angulo got Cintron into a corner, he would simply use his strentgh and move Angulo away and back into the centre of the ring. This is a great defensive move he has learn from Shields. Its rare to see a boxer fully change there style with as much sucess as Cintron has. You can put that down to the work of Shields, one of the great trainers.

Williams will not be able to get inside and have the sucess Margorito had. Williams is not a huge puncher. He is a volume puncher, at this will play into the hands of Cintrons style. Cintron is the bigger puncher, he has 1 punch KO power. His fights have been going the distance recently due to his new style, but he can still knock a Williams out with either hand.

Willams as I have said is an hugley active agressive fighter. He throws over 100 punches a round on a regular basis, for 12 rounds if he needs to. He is a southpaw and always has his feet set to throw. For a big man he has great foot movement, like Cintron. The way to beat a counter puncher like Cintron is to just keep throwing hard accurate punches, keep moving forward with smart effective pressure. Williams has doen this in every fight. He always fights the same way. The problem for counter punchers like Cintron, and previous Williams opponent Winky Wright is that you cannot counter the number of punches Williams is throwing. Cintron will spend to much time avoiding and blocking punches, and not being able to counter.

Williams is taller than Cintron, and he fights as a tall man. This is a huge advantage in a fight between two big men, as Cintron will have never has a fight with a taller man before. With his 82 inch reach he can get to Cintron from anywhere in the ring. Martinez was able to have sucess against Williams as he used lateral movement to keep him off balance. He did the same agaisnt Pavlik. Cintron does not have great lateral movement and does not have a speed advantage in hand and foot that Martinez had over Williams.

Williams will come out being agresive, in Cintrons face throwing allot of punches, but missing allot. He will win some early rounds on work rate alone. He is the more explosive fighter so his good work will look better to the judges than Cintrons. At some point Cintron is going to hit and hurt Williams and we will see Williams back off and start being more cautious when coming inside to avoid Cintrons power, especially the big right hand. If Williams is going to win this fight he needs to get to the body, if Cintron is to win he needs to keep moving around the ring and have success countering with the ring hand.

I get a feeling there will be a controversial split decision, maybe even a draw.