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Steward: He will be a busy champion
Bostick: Gatti #1 on the hit list

After his devastating win over Mark Suarez on Saturday night, newly crowned IBF welterweight champion Kermit Cintron feels vindicated. "I told everybody that it was a fluke against Margarito," stated Kermit in regard to his only loss 18 months ago. "This is something that I wanted for the longest time and I finally got it. Being a world champion feels so good and I know that there's more and better things to come....We'll see what Emanuel has planned for me next. I definitely want to defend my title in Puerto Rico, I want to fight there and I want to fight in Reading (PA), my hometown, as well.

Cintron attributes much of his improvement since the Margarito fight to his new trainer/manager Emanuel Steward. "It shows. It shows how much I improved since the Margarito fight. I'm more focused, I'm training harder, I'm having a lot of fun in training, I wasn't getting that before and now I'm getting it. And that's what it's all about, I just need to have fun in the ring.

"...Kronk is my family. We all work hard. There's no messing around. I remember the first time I stepped in the Kronk Gym, the first words I heard were 'fresh meat,' and I was like 'Whoa, what's going on with that?' But then after that, everybody respected me and I respected them and we all got along and I have a great team behind me."

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In a classy move, Cintron visited his vanquished opponent Suarez in his dressing room after the fight. "I went in there and wanted to tell him I know how he feels," said Kermit. "Actually the day of the press conference I was mad at what I heard. Then the same day I heard that his dad passed away not too long ago. So I went in there and I said to him 'keep your head up, I know how it feels, losing parents. It's not a good feeling,' I said to him 'keep your head up and stay strong.'"

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Emanuel Steward

A beaming Emanuel Steward was pleased with Kermit's performance.

"I thought it was a very good performance when I consider the fact that he was making adjustments because he hadn't fought a top quality guy that is physically so much bigger than him. This guy is 6'1", the first two rounds you could see the physical strength factors. And as the fight progressed, the punches that were hitting [Suarez] in the beginning and weren't hurting him, having any effect, I was seeing that they were starting to have an effect on him.

"I thought that Kermit did very well because he started to change it up and mix up his attack. He started landing right hand leads, punches to the body, jabs, uppercuts and at the stage when it ended, I think it was just a case of Suarez saying it was too much of everything. He couldn't figure out where the shots were coming from. He was getting caught when he was going in, was getting caught when he stepped back and Cintron seemed like he was picking up steam and he was just doing too many things for Suarez to keep up with. So mentally I think, as well as physically, Suarez just totally collapsed.

"It was a very good professional systematic performance by Kermit. We're going to keep him very busy in the future. His activity level has been too low but that's all behind him now. He has no more hand injuries, I'm his manager, which many people don't know, so I'm going to keep him very busy."

As for Cintron's place in the welterweight division, Steward commented, "I think based on this performance here and the great fight he had with Estrada, whom Shane Mosley won a ten round decision over, and the fact that Cintron knocked out Estrada and then he comes back and knocks this guy out, you look at his overall record and knockout percentage and he's got to be up there.

"I have no fear of him fighting any welterweight in the world right today. As a matter of fact I would rather have been fighting Shane Mosley or Mayweather rather than fight this big guy that we had to fight tonight. I think that he's a very balanced out technical fighter and if he stays busy, I believe the same as I said with Wladimir Klitschko -- in 24 months he will be the dominant number one welterweight."

"He's going to be a busy champion," reemphasized Steward. "He needs to have three to four fights a year. All the great fighters ascend to their greatness at the time when they're busy fighters."

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Bobby Bostick

Promoter Bobby Bostick says he plans to keep Cintron busy and in lucrative fights. "Kermit's ready to get paid now," he told Fightnews.com. "We're going to go out and get all that money.

"We're going to give Gatti a shot, Cotto a shot, all the money people now. We're not playing with anybody small, we don't need to. We're going to get all the pay. I offered Shane a million dollars not to get hit, now he's going to have to get hit. They gave us a call the other day. I got a call from Golden Boy last week and [matchmaker Eric] Gomez and I talked and Shane wants a shot at Kermit. We're going to give him that shot.

"Is it right now? Probably not. We'll probably get Gatti first, he's in line for that. We've been talking a little bit with Main Events about that and I'm sure we'll close that down pretty soon. That's for February"

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Gatti's in line first? yay.