The main undercard fight for tonight's Brandon Rios vs Urbano Antillon card in California saw Carlos Molina score yet another minor upset in his career, as he dominated former welterweight titlist Kermit Cintron over 10 rounds, winning on scores of 98-92 across the board. Bad Left Hook scored it 99-91 for Molina.
Molina (19-4-2, 6 KO) was busier, better, and it even appeared stronger than Cintron (32-4-1, 28 KO). I have been open for years with the thought that I just never thought Cintron was very good, but he looked worse than ever tonight. He was rusty, out of rhythm, slow, and frankly just couldn't get anything going on offense. He was flat-out lousy in this fight and never really in it past the third round. After that, it was all Molina, who rocked Cintron a few times, bloodied his nose, and simply beat him up in many rounds.
It's a great win for Molina, whose record could be a lot better than it is if not for some debatable decisions earlier in his career. He's on a tremendous roll right now and has become a serious contender at 154 pounds, while Cintron, now 31, tumbles out of the title picture at junior middleweight, and takes a serious blow to his career prospects with this loss. Needless to say, this wasn't the Top Rank debut Cintron was hoping for -- or the Cintron debut Top Rank was hoping to see, either.
Results from the off-TV undercard:
- Matt Korobov UD-8 Lester Gonzalez
- Mercito Gesta KO-3 Jorge Pimentel
- Jose Roman KO-1 Randy Arrellin
- Paul Fleming KO-1 Juan Jose Beltran
- Gabino Saenz KO-3 Quincy Wesby
- Mike Lee KO-3 Michael Birthmark
- Alonso Loeza D-4 Ricardo Malfavon