California rules Cintron will keep the loss from Saturday

This whole Kermit Cintron thing is a mess. From the LA Times:

The executive officer of the California State Athletic Commission has ruled that Kermit Cintron's technical split-decision loss to super-welterweight Paul Williams on Saturday at Carson's Home Depot Center will remain a defeat, although the entire commission can still hear Cintron's appeal at its next meeting in July, a state spokesman said.

Cintron's promoter and manager earlier Monday appealed to Executive Officer George Dodd to change Cintron's loss to a no-contest after the Puerto Rican former world welterweight champion became entangled with Williams and stumbled through the ropes, falling out of the ring and crashing to the floor during the fourth round.

Ringside Dr. Paul Wallace told The Times on Monday that Cintron twice told doctors he was unable to continue because of back pain, prompting Wallace to instruct referee Lou Moret that the fight should be stopped.

So the doctor says Cintron said twice that he could not continue, Cintron says he wasn't speaking due to the wind being knocked out of him. Promoter Lou DiBella is "outraged" and believes this "will have a serious impact on [Cintron's] ability in this business," whatever that means.

I don't think he should have a loss on his record, simply because I don't think three rounds and change is enough to go to to the scorecards. It's just not. They didn't even box for as long as the scheduled time of Butterbean's usual fights.

As for Cintron's "mental fragility," I know some are hesitant to say that a fighter is "faking" anything, or that he "quit," or that he was melodramatic, or whatever. And I know others are very quick to jump the gun and call a guy weak. Trying to be completely unbiased, I have to say it's not the first time that Cintron's mental game has come up. It came up twice with Margarito, and I just really don't want to hear the "well Margarito's a cheater" argument, because even if he was, that has nothing to do with it. Everyone who's worked with Cintron says he's a very emotional guy, and Cintron's manager even has said in the past that Margarito smiling at Cintron's best shots had an emotional impact on Kermit. It came up again with Sergio Martinez. He's got the sticker on him that says he doesn't persevere when things aren't going his way.

Now, that's not exactly the case here. I thought he was winning the fight, and Cintron seemed to, in my view, rightly believe he was doing very well. Williams wasn't looking very good in there, and Paul had just been hurt.

I'm not trying to "call him out" about it. He's heard it, I'm sure. I'm not saying this is the absolute, or even that this is what I think, but truthfully, there doesn't have to be a reason that Cintron would take the literal dive, say he can't continue, and then cry foul after. Some people are just dramatic and weird. All I'm saying is that something's not adding up here. What does the ringside doctor get out of lying about Cintron saying he can't continue?

You can either believe Cintron is cursed or whatever, or you can believe there's something more tangible and real to it than that. I lean toward the latter, frankly, as harsh and mean as that might sound. I won't say I have a good idea exactly what it is, but again, mental fragility has been brought up before with Cintron. This is not new. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this specific case, but things don't always make sense. Either way you lean, you have to admit something is askew here.

Still, the California rule is stupid and this fight should have been a no-contest.