By Jim Dower: Former World Boxing Association (WBA) light middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (32-2, 19 KO’s) never got out of the 1st round against number #7 ranked WBC light middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo (19-1, 16 KO’s), and was stopped in the 1st round in a WBC light middleweight title eliminator bout on Saturday night at the Aqua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California.

Alcine, 34, boxed cleverly for the opening minute of the round, fighting with his feet wide apart and throwing jabs at Angulo. If things had remained just like that the entire fight, Alcine would have easily won the fight. However, he soon started to throw power shot at Angulo, and seeking to exchange shots with him.

Angulo, 27, loves to slug it out with his opponents, and looked overjoyed when Alcine didn’t opt to run from him like many of Angulo’s opponents have done against him. Things got messy for Alcine when he was tagged with a hard right hand from Angulo while standing in the middle of the ring.

Instead of choosing to move away and escape, Alcine dove at Angulo and clinched. Angulo was having none of it, and continue to fire punches while in a clinch. Alcine, thinking he would prevent Angulo from throwing shots while in close, grabbed Angulo’s left arm and held onto it. This is something they teach you not to do, because it leaves your opponents other arm free to throw punches.

And this is what Angulo did. He started hammering Alcine with right hands to the body and head, and seemed to hurt him before Alcine finally figured out that he needed to let him go. Angulo, sensing blood, went after Alcine, backing him up to the ropes and continuing to hammer away at him with hard combinations.

Alcine, who not a big puncher, attempted to fight back, throwing really sloppy looking shots that missed badly. Angulo’s shots weren’t missing, though, and he continued to hammer Alcine with heavy shots. One of the punches hurt Alcine, causing him to drop both of his hands and leaving him wide open for Angulo.

Before the referee Lou Moret could come over and stop the fight, Angulo succeeded in landing at least four hard shots to the head of Alcine. Loret quickly stopped the fight before Angulo could knock Alcine to the canvas, but Alcine still took some brutal shots before Moret could stop. The official stoppage was 2:59 of the 1st.

Alcine fought a really stupid fight and it’s not surprising he didn’t make it out of the 1st round against Angulo. Alcine should have watched the video of Angulo’s loss to Kermit Cintron, and taken note that the way to beat Angulo is through movement, and not by slugging it out with him.

Angulo has his work cut out for him against Cintron or Antonio Margarito, whichever one ends up facing him for the WBC junior middleweight title. Cintron seemed to have Angulo’s number last time they fought, and it’s hard to see the outcome being any different the second time around.

In other fights on the card:

Antonio DeMarco TKO 2 Daniel Attah
Art Hovhannesyan UD 8 Cristian Favela