By Scott Gilfoid: In perhaps the most exciting fight of the night on card with top prospects James Kirkland and Yuriorkis Gamboa, undefeated light middleweight prospect Alfredo Angulo (13-0, 10 KOs) stopped Colombian Richard Gutierrez (24-2, 14 KOs) in the 5th round of a scheduled 10-round bout to win the vacant WBO Inter-Continental light middleweight title on Saturday night at the Buffalo Bills Hotel, in Primm, Nevada. Angulo, 25, a former 2004 Olympic representative for the Mexican team, was hurt by a powerful left hook by Gutierrez in the 5th round.
Gutierrez, 29, appeared to get careless as he went for the knockout, and left himself open for a big right hand from Angulo, who stunned him. Instead of rushing quickly to score a knockout of his own, Angulo stayed calm, and placed his punches well to the head and body of Gutierrez. A short while later, after taking numerous big right hands to the head, a now staggering Gutierrez, could barely stand and was taking tremendous punishment causing the referee Tony Weeks to move in and stop the fight at 2:48 of the 5th round to prevent Gutierrez from absorbing more punishment.
It was needless to say, quite around in the round, as Gutierrez seemed on the verge of a knockout after hurting Angulo, only to have the fight change in a second when Angulo landed a powerful right hand to hurt Gutierrez.
In the first round, it looked as if Angulo, 25, was in a little over his head as the 29 year-old Gutierrez landed a high number of hard right hands to the head of Angulo. Indeed, Gutierrez looked quite good in the round, both the faster and more fluid fighter of the two. Gutierrez was warned for holding Angulo’s head and hitting him in the round by the referee. With the round seemingly under control by Gutierrez, he let off in the last 30 seconds of the round, allowing Angulo to throw a flurry of tremendous shots to end the round.
I’m not sure if it was enough to win the round, but the shots were huge, mostly head shots, and it couldn’t have done Gutierrez any good to be hit by them. I wasn’t surprised that Gutierrez let off, because in many of the fights I’d seen him in, I’ve noticed that he often fights in spurts, and takes time off to rest. Against a hard worker like Angulo, that was something that Gutierrez could ill afford to do.
Angulo controlled the 2nd round, as he hit Gutierrez frequently with devastating right hand shots to the head and body. Gutierrez seemed to be playing into the hands of Angulo, though, by standing directly in front of him and trying to slug with him. This was a bad move on Gutierrez’s part, because he has excellent movement when he wants to, and he didn’t need to try and slug with Angulo, who was the much bigger puncher than him. It seemed as if Gutierrez was seeing this as a pride thing, not wanting to show that he could be backed off by Angulo. I can understand where he’s coming from, even though I think it was stupid for him to do this. Angulo landed a high amount of heavy power shots in the round, mixing up his punches well to the body and head.
Angulo was cut somehow on the right side of his head, perhaps from a clash of heads which had occurred in the round. Gutierrez, for his part, was beginning to show signs of fatigue in the round, breathing hard and looking uncomfortable with the fast pace of the fight. Indeed, the pace was incredibly high, with Angulo averaging 100 punches thrown in both rounds. He looked in many ways like a harder punching version of Antonio Margarito, the IBF welterweight champion known for his high punch output. By the end of the round, Angulo was looking fresh despite the many punches he’d thrown in the round, bouncing on his toes and smiling at Gutierrez.
In the 3rd round, Gutierrez was beginning to look sloppy, throwing wild shots, missing badly and appearing to be weakening. He was breathing hard much of the time, and looking worried from all the pressure that was being applied on him by Angulo, who was not letting up on his fast pace of the fight. Angulo continued blasting him with hard left-right combinations over and over, moving from body to head with his shots.
It was like a punching clinic by Angulo, who appeared to do everything correctly, using perfect punching form and always throwing in combinations rather than one shot at a time. He seemed like a trainers’ dream, fighting smart and correctly with his power shots. He continued with his furious pace, once again throwing more than 100 punches in the round and out-landing a tiring Gutierrez by a significant margin in the process. For his part, Gutierrez was averaging 60 punches per round, yet it was killing him seeming to be too much for him to keep up.
In the 4th round, Angulo threw 115 punches, and was beginning to look slightly cocky, like he knew the fight was his. To be sure, he was tagging a wilting Gutierrez often with one tremendous shot after another, and the rounds were no longer even slightly competitive. At the same time, Gutierrez’s own punch output began to drop off steeply, as he looked too tired to throw more than a handful of punches in the round.
Despite all this, at one point in the round Gutierrez shouted at Angulo, “Let’s go,” urging him on as if he wanted him to mix it up even more than he was already. It seemed as if Gutierrez was a little disconnected from reality at that moment, for he’d been getting drilled with huge head shots in the round repeatedly, as he was in the three previous rounds and it seemed like an odd request for him to make to Angulo. In between rounds, Gutierrez looked exhausted, gasping for breath and looking much older than his 29 years would indicate.
In the 5th round, Angulo continued to pour in massive amounts of punches. Shortly into the round, however, Gutierrez landed a perfect left hook that hurt Angulo, staggering him and driving him backwards. Gutierrez, now looking disparate, ran after him and began throwing a flurry of punches, with most of them missing badly. Angulo, his legs still weak looking, fired back and didn’t miss his shots. He continued to tag Gutierrez, who was fighting all out, not thinking of defense at all. This would be a mistake that would cost him seconds later when Angulo landed a hard right to the head that hurt Gutierrez, causing him to take a step back.
Angulo then threw another right hand, this one staggering Gutierrez. Seeing this, Angulo went after him calmly, hitting him with one shot after another to the head and body, missing none of his shots. With each punch landed, it seemed to take more and more out of Gutierrez, his legs getting worse, staggering more and more. Finally, after getting hit with one particularly hard right hand, Gutierrez’s legs were completely gone and he could barely stand at all. Angulo landed one final left-right combination which rocked Gutierrez, but still failed to knock him down, at which point referee Tony Weeks moved in and halted the fight at 2:48 of the 5th round.