RINGSIDE REPORT: Canelo Wins By Controversial TKO Over Angulo

Published

10 years ago

March 9, 2014

LAS VEGAS-One punch is all it takes to change a fight. This time one punch is all it took to end a one-sided fight in Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s favor over Mexican slugger Alfredo “Perro” Angulo on Saturday.

The Angulo backers hissed, booed and fired full cups of beer into the ring in anger when the fight was stopped in round 10 for a technical knockout win for Alvarez.

“My job is just to do my work in the ring,” said Canelo after. “I let the judges and referees do their job.”

Guadalajara’s Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 Kos) did his job well against Mexicali, Mexico’s Angulo (22-4, 18 Kos) at the MGM, and he dominated the fight. No belt, but Mexican pride was the real prize and sometimes that’s a bad thing.

When both fighters were announced the boos cascaded throughout the arena. Half were devoted to Angulo and the other half to Alvarez. So when the fight was stopped suddenly by referee Tony Weeks, the crowd was downright ornery. Beer and water was tossed into the ring and the surrounding areas. A good thing they weren’t Molotov cocktails.

“He stopped the fight because he knew what was going on,” said Alvarez, who lost his last fight and junior middleweight world titles to Floyd Mayweather last September. “I was getting a little tired but I could have gone another 10 rounds.”

“Canelo” Alvarez showed off his faster hands and accuracy from the very first punch to the very last as he bounced punches off of Angulo’s head and face. Angulo’s plan to force the fight to go beyond seven rounds was not a good one. Though Alvarez’s endurance did wane, it was not enough to turn things in Angulo’s favor.

Alvarez tagged Angulo with the first left hook he fired from the hip in round one. There was no tentativeness on Alvarez’s part in the opening two rounds. Angulo merely pawed with his punches.

Before the third round began Angulo’s trainer Virgil Hunter chastised his fighter “Perro” Angulo and that seemed to fire up the fighter. He began to fire combinations though Alvarez kept firing back his own vicious left hooks and rights.

Alvarez began to slow down his punch output around round five and that allowed Angulo to begin firing his own three-punch combinations. Though Alvarez was decreasing his punches, those that he fired were connecting on the rock head of Angulo.

It wasn’t until the seventh round that Angulo began to catch up to Alvarez. The red head seemed to weaken a bit and that allowed the aggressive Angulo to gain confidence.

Angulo erupted with an array of blows in the eighth to the cheers of crowd. Alvarez urged him on to fire more blows and was obliged by the Mexicali slugger. After a dozen blows, Alvarez then erupted with his own combinations. Angulo nodded and motioned with his gloves to Alvarez to continue more. Many in the stands jumped to their feet in anticipation of toe-to-toe action. They finally received it and let the fighters know with cheers.

The Mexicali fighter with his crew cut hair and now swollen face, seemed boosted by the cheers and began to attack more aggressively. Alvarez tried firing back but was cautious of the incoming blows. It was another good round for Angulo in the ninth.

A fired up Angulo met Alvarez in the middle of the ring in round 10 and both fired punches. A counter left hook by Alvarez backed up Angulo and then the redhead followed up with a left uppercut that snapped back Angulo’s head. The referee jumped in between the fighters and motioned the fight was over. Angulo pranced around the ring in anger and shrugged off any attempts by people to trying to console him.

“I’m upset. They should have let the fight go on,” said Angulo who was never knocked down despite receiving some horrific blows. “The referee was wrong on this.”

Alvarez was happy by the win and even happier that neither fighter left seriously injured.

“It was a hard fight. I was in his territory and I was able to go toe-to-toe,” said Alvarez. “Thank God nobody got hurt.”

Alvarez later was cornered at the post press fight conference by current junior middleweight titlist Erislandy Lara. The Cuban southpaw asked for a fight but was rebuffed by Alvarez, who asked the crowd for a show of hands of those wanting Lara to fight him. Only two people out of a couple of hundred put their hands up.

That was the answer. But Alvarez will fight in July. It just won’t be Lara.

Other bouts

WBC junior featherweight titlist Leo Santa Cruz (27-0-1, 15 Kos) breezed through Mexico’s Cristian Mijares (48-8-2, 22 Kos) and showed the former champion that experience doesn’t always beat youth. Santa Cruz, 25, was persistent with the body attack and accurate with his combinations as Mijares tried in vain to find an antidote. Though cut alongside his right eye due to an accidental clash of heads, Santa Cruz was fresh for all 12 rounds against the 32-year-old Mijares. All three judges scored it heavily in favor of Santa Cruz 120-108 twice and 119-109.

“Mijares is a great boxer. I tried my best,” said Santa Cruz, of East Los Angeles who took home $500,000 for the fight. “We had difficulty but we practiced with southpaws every day.”

Venezuela’s Jorge Linares (36-3, 23 Kos) proved he’s not done yet as he dominated Japan’s Nihito Arakawa (24-4-1, 16 Kos) with speed and precision over 10 rounds in a lightweight bout. Linares ripped off numerous four-punch combinations against the always pressing Arakawa. Though the Japanese fighter was never seriously hurt, he could never seem to land a telling blow. Linares dazzled with sizzling left uppercuts that would have knocked out any other fighter but Arakawa.

“I knew he could take a punch,” said Linares, who is a former world champion and now will fight the WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa, who trains in Indio, Ca. “I hurt my hand against him in the fourth round.”

Arakawa never assumed he was close to winning the fight.

“I knew I was losing and I tried my best,” Arakawa said. “Linares is strong and very good.”

Sergio “Yeyo” Thompson (29-3, 26 Kos) floored Ricardo Alvarez (23-3-3, 13 Kos) twice and out-punched the older brother of “Canelo” Alvarez through most of the 10-round lightweight fight. Despite the dominance, two judges scored it a close 95-93 for Thompson in a fight that seemed he won by a larger margin. One judge did score it 97-91 for Thompson, who took the fight on two week’s notice when the original scheduled fighter Omar Figueroa was injured during training.

“I’m very excited about this win because I was training for another fight,” said Thompson, who fights out of Cancun, Mexico and wins the WBC International lightweight title. “I was able to counter Alvarez effectively. I felt I had sufficient power at 135 pounds.”

Alvarez was disappointed by his performance.

“I didn’t have any power at this weight,” said Alvarez, who dropped down from junior welterweight to lightweight.

Mexico’s Francisco Vargas (19-0-1, 13 Kos) defeated Puerto Rico’s Abner Cotto (17-2, 8 Kos) by unanimous decision in an excellent display of scientific trench warfare. Both fighters slugged it out and neither was willing to give ground, but Vargas proved to be slightly more accurate and busier after 10 rounds of the junior lightweight clash.

Jerry Belmontes (19-3) out-boxed Australia’s Will Tomlinson (21-1-1, 12 Kos) and handed him his first career loss as a pro. Belmontes fights out of Corpus Christi, Texas. The scores were 99-91 and 98-92 for Belmontes.

Joseph Diaz Jr. (9-0, 7 Kos) blasted out Puerto Rico’s Jovany Fuentes (5-4, 4 Kos) with a left to the body for a knockout win at 2:59 of round five. Diaz, a former U.S. Olympian from South El Monte, Calif., fights as a junior featherweight.

St. Louis junior welterweight Keandre Gibson (9-0-1, 4 Kos) stopped Tijuana’s Antonio Wong (11-8-1) with a body shot at 1:51 of round four. Wong was able to take all of the head shots that were zinged his way by Gibson, but not the body shot.

Australia’s Steve Lovett (8-0, 6 Kos) knocked out Mexico’s Francisco Molina (2-3, 2 Kos) with a right cross at 1:13 of round two of a light heavyweight bout to remain undefeated. Lovett fights out of New South Wales.

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David A. Avila

Canelo-Charlo Gets All the Ink, but Don’t Overlook the Compelling Match-up of Gassiev-Wallin in Turkey

Published

5 hours ago

September 26, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Canelo-Charlo-Gets-All-the-Ink-but-Don't-Overlook-This-Compelling-Match-in-Turkey

Canelo-Charlo Gets All the Ink, but Don’t Overlook the Compelling Match-up of Gassiev-Wallin in Turkey

The eyes of the boxing world will be on Las Vegas this Saturday where Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez risks his four super middleweight title belts against unified 154-pound champion Jermell Charlo. Earlier that day at a luxury resort hotel in the city of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, there’s a heavyweight match sitting under the radar that may prove to be the better fight. It’s an intriguing match-up between former world cruiserweight title-holder Murat Gassiev and Swedish southpaw Otto Wallin, a bout with significant ramifications for boxing’s glamour division.

Gassiev (30-1, 23 KOs) and Wallin (25-1, 14 KOs) have only one loss, but those setbacks came against the top dogs in the division. Gassiev was out-boxed by Oleksandr Usyk back in the days when both were cruiserweights. Wallin gave Tyson Fury a world of trouble before losing a unanimous decision.

Since those fights, both have been treading water.

Gassiev

Gassiev was inactive for 27 months after his match with Usyk while dealing with legal issues and an injury to his left shoulder. He is 4-0 (4 KOs) since returning to the ring while answering the bell for only eight rounds. The only recognizable name among those four victims is German gatekeeper Michael Wallisch. After stopping Wallisch, Gassiev was out of action for another 13 months while reportedly dealing with an arm injury.

A first-round knockout of Carlouse Welch, an obscure 40-something boxer from the U.S. state of Georgia on Aug. 26, 2022, in Belgrade, Serbia, was promoted as a title fight. The sanctioning body was the Eurasian Boxing Parliament (insert your own punchline here). Gassiev followed that up with a second-round knockout of former NFL linebacker Mike Balogun who came in undefeated and was seemingly a legitimate threat to him.

Although he has yet to fight a ranked opponent since leaving the cruiserweight division, Gassiev — a former stablemate of Gennady Golovkin who has been living in Big Bear, California, training under Abel Sanchez – is one of the most respected fighters in the division because he has one-punch knockout power as Balogun and others can well attest. The rub against the Russian-Armenian bruiser is that he is somewhat robotic.

Wallin

Otto Wallin, a 32-year-old southpaw from Sweden who trains in New York under former world lightweight champion Joey Gamache, fought Tyson Fury on Sept. 14, 2019 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. There was a general feeling that the Swede would be a stroll in the park for Fury, but to the contrary, he gave the Gypsy King a hard tussle while losing a unanimous decision.

Wallin is 5-0 since that night beginning with victories over Travis Kauffman (KO 5) and Dominic Breazeale (UD 12), but his last three opponents were softer than soft and all three lasted the distance. In order, Wallin won an 8-round decision over Kamil Sokolowski, who was 11-24-2 heading in, won a 10-round decision over ancient Rydell Booker, and won an 8-round decision over Helaman Olguin. His bout with Utah trial horse Olguin was at a banquet hall in Windham, New Hampshire.

It isn’t that Wallin has been avoiding the top names in the division; it’s the other way around. His promoter Dmitriy Salita reportedly came close to getting Wallin a match with Anthony Joshua whose team had second thoughts about sending Joshua in against another southpaw after back-to-back setbacks to Oleksandr Usyk.

Gassiev vs Wallin is a true crossroads fight. Both are in dire need of a win over a credible opponent. At last look, Gassiev, who figures to have the crowd in his corner, was a 3/1 favorite.

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Skavynskyi and Bustillos Win on a MarvNation Card in Long Beach

Published

2 days ago

September 24, 2023

David A. Avila

Skavynskyi and Bustillos Win on a MarvNation Card in Long Beach

LONG BEACH, Ca.-A cool autumn night saw welterweights and minimumweights share main events for a MarvNation fight card on Saturday.

Ukraine’s Eduard Skavynskyi (15-0, 7 KOs) experienced a tangled mess against the awkward Alejandro Frias (14-10-2) but won by decision after eight rounds in a welterweight contest at the indoor furnace called the Thunder Studios.

It was hot in there for the more than 600 people inside.

Skavynskyi probably never fought someone like Mexico’s Frias whose style was the opposite of the Ukrainian’s fundamentally sound one-two style. But round after round the rough edges became more familiar.

Neither fighter was ever damaged but all three judges saw Skavynskyi the winner by unanimous decision 79-73 on all three cards. The Ukrainian fighter trains in Ventura.

Bustillo Wins Rematch

Applerose2

In the female main event Las Vegas’ Yadira Bustillos (8-1) stepped into a rematch with Karen Lindenmuth (5-2) and immediately proved the lessons learned from their first encounter.

Bustillos connected solidly with an overhand right and staggered Lindenmuth but never came close to putting the pressure fighter down. Still, Bustillos kept turning the hard rushing Lindenmuth and snapping her head with overhand rights and check left hooks.

Lindenmuth usually overwhelms most opponents with a smothering attack that causes panic. But not against Bustillos who seemed quite comfortable all eight rounds in slipping blows and countering back.

After eight rounds all three judges scored the contest for Bustillos 78-74 and 80-72 twice. Body shots were especially effective for the Las Vegas fighter in the fifth round. Bustillos competes in the same division as IBF/WBO title-holder Yokasta Valle.

Other Bouts

In a middleweight clash, undefeated Victorville’s Andrew Buchanan (3-0-1) used effective combination punching to defeat Mexico’s Fredy Vargas (2-1-1) after six rounds. Two judges scored it 59-55 and a third 60-54 for Buchanan. No knockdowns were scored.

A super lightweight match saw Sergio Aldana win his pro debut by decision after four rounds versus Gerardo Fuentes (2-9-1).

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Tedious Fights and a Controversial Draw Smudge the Matchroom Boxing Card in Orlando

Published

3 days ago

September 23, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Tedious-Fights-and-a-Controversial-Draw-Smudge-the-Matchroom-Boxing-Card-in-Orlando

Matchroom Boxing was at the sprawling Royale Caribe Resort Hotel in Orlando, Florida tonight with a card that aired on DAZN. The main event was a ho-hum affair between super lightweights Richardson Hitchins and Jose Zepeda.

SoCal’s Zepeda has been in some wars in the past, notably his savage tussle with Ivan Baranchyk, but tonight he brought little to the table and was outclassed by the lanky Hitchins who won all 12 rounds on two of the cards and 11 rounds on the other. There were no knockdowns, but Zepeda suffered a cut on his forehead in round seven that was deemed to be the product of an accidental head butt and another clash in round ten forced a respite in the action although Hitchins suffered no apparent damage.

It was the sort of fight where each round was pretty much a carbon of the round preceding it. Brooklyn’s Hitchins, who improved to 17-0 (7), was content to pepper Zepeda with his jab, and the 34-year-old SoCal southpaw, who brought a 37-3 record, was never able to penetrate his defense and land anything meaningful.

Hitchins signed with Floyd Mayweather Jr’s promotional outfit coming out of the amateur ranks and his style is reminiscent in ways of his former mentor. Like Mayweather, he loses very few rounds. In his precious engagement, he pitched a shutout over previously undefeated John Bauza.

Co-Feature

In the co-feature, Conor Benn returned to the ring after an absence of 17 months and won a unanimous decision over Mexico’s Rodolfo Orozco. It wasn’t a bad showing by Benn who showed decent boxing skills, but more was expected of him after his name had been bandied about so often in the media. Two of the judges had it 99-91 and the other 96-94.

Benn (22-0, 14 KOs) was a late addition to the card although one suspects that promoter Eddie Hearn purposely kept him under wraps until the week of the fight so as not to deflect the spotlight from the other matches on his show. Benn lost a lucrative date with Chris Eubank Jr when he was suspended by the BBBofC when evidence of a banned substance was found in his system and it’s understood that Hearn has designs on re-igniting the match-up with an eye on a date in December. For tonight’s fight, Benn carried a career-high 153 ½ pounds. Mexico’s Orozco, who was making his first appearance in a U.S. ring, declined to 32-4-3.

Other Bouts of Note

The welterweight title fight between WBA/WBC title-holder Jessica McCaskill (15-3-1) and WBO title-holder Sandy Ryan (6-1-1) ended in a draw and the ladies’ retain their respective titles. Ryan worked the body effectively and the general feeling was that she got a raw deal, a sentiment shared by the crowd which booed the decision. There was a switch of favorites in the betting with the late money seemingly all on the Englishwoman who at age 30 was the younger boxer by nine years.

The judges had it 96-94 Ryan, 96-95, and a vilified 97-93 for Chicago’s McCaskill.

In the opener of the main DAZN stream, Houston middleweight Austin “Ammo” Williams, 27, improved to 15-0 (10) with a 10-round unanimous decision over 39-year-old Toronto veteran Steve Rolls (22-3). All three judges had it 97-93. Rolls has been stopped only once, that by Gennady Golovkin.

Photo credit: Ed Mulholland / Matchroom Boxing

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