Kermit Cintron was on MMAWeekly Radio Wednesday discussing his “acceptance” of Dana White’s open challenge.
Follow after the jump to read a recap of what was discussed…
Cintron was first asked how the idea of Dana’s challenge got to him. Kermit said that he is a big fan of the UFC and wants to try it out to see what happens. He did say that he knows there is more to the sport than just wrestling and boxing (his two backgrounds) so it was nice to hear that he doesn’t necessarily expect his boxing skills to be able to carry him. He made clear that his boxing career will come first and that he will focus entirely on boxing until after his fight in July.
Kermit stated that he wrestled from the time he was 11 thru college and the last time he wrestled was in 2002 after going to nationals. He also said “I respect the fighters in the UFC, those guys go in there and to me it is like boxing. You have to prepare yourself and anyone can get hurt.”
When asked if he wanted to immediately have a big fight or if he would be willing to work his way up to a title fight Kermit replied “I think that a boxing world champion vs. the UFC world champion would be great and a lot of exposure for both of us.” He even threw a little note in about the possible HBO/UFC partnership and how the fight would even benefit HBO.
The interview concluded with a little bit of boxing vs. MMA rivalry talk (during which Kermit said that he has followed the UFC since 98 or 99) and some hype time for Cintron to discuss his July IBF title fight.
Overall I was fairly impressed with the way Cintron handled himself and the way he does seem to honestly respect the sport of mixed martial arts and understand that he will need to train differently should he decide to take a fight. I know a lot of people will give him flak for saying that he wants an immediate fight with Sherk (or whoever is the champion) but it only makes sense from a money standpoint. There isn’t a lot of money involved in MMA fight purses compared to what top level boxers make and for the money to be there in a UFC fight it would need to be against a top level fighter. I still don’t think the
I should have a “Double Leg Breakdown” article up before the end of the weekend introducing MMA fans to Kermit Cintron and examining what the possible crossover bout really means.
About the author
