Angulo vs. Kirkland: Alfredo has the perfect opponent for him on November 5th

By Jason Kim: You couldn’t find a more perfect opponent for junior middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo (20-1, 17 KO’s) than the rusty shaky-chinned all out brawler James Kirkland (29-1, 26 KO’s), who Angulo will be fighting on November 5th in his home country of Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

This will be the biggest fight for Angulo since he lost a 12 round decision to a defensive-minded Kermit Cintron in 2009. Angulo, who claims he was sick at the time he fought Cintron, has improved a lot since that fight and he won’t have to chase Kirkland like he did Cintron in that fight. But even if Kirkland does try and pull some tricks by using movement, which he probably won’t, Angulo will be ready for it by using his excellent jab to spear Kirkland from the outside.

Angulo has almost every advantage in this fight. He’s got the better jab, the better power, the better chin and the home country advantage. Everything is in Angulo’s favor. However, that’s not to say that Kirkland doesn’t have a chance in this fight. Kirkland can really bang and we really don’t know how well Angulo will respond to facing another all out slugger like himself.

The closest Angulo has got to facing a puncher that comes to fight was in his fight against former welterweight Richard Gutierrez in 2008. And Gutierrez was able to stagger Angulo shortly before Gutierrez was knocked out in the 5th round. The other punchers that Angulo has faced were Cintron and Joel Julio, both of whom didn’t take any chances and ran from Angulo the entire fight.

Kirkland was knocked out in the 1st round earlier this year in April by Nobuhiro Ishida. Kirkland was knocked down three times in that fight and looked sloppy and slow. But in fairness to Kirkland, it was only his third fight after serving a year in an Austin, Texas prison for a weapons violation.

Kirkland really shouldn’t have been facing an opponent as good as Ishida while looking flabby like he was. Kirkland has since changed trainers and is back with his old trainer Ann Wolfe. The weight that Kirkland put on in prison is now completely off and he seems to be pretty much the same fighter he was before going to prison, at least in terms of how he looks physically.

But Angulo is a big step up for and a really risky fight. It may be too soon for him and he doesn’t have the boxing skills to try and win a decision the way that Cintron did. Kirkland’s only chance of winning is if he can go toe-to-toe with Angulo and beat him in the trenches. It’s unclear whether Kirkland can do that with his weak chin.

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