By Dan Ambrose: The winner of the November 5th fight between junior middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo (20-1, 17 KO’s) and American James Kirkland (29-1, 26 KO’s) could face WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez in 2012 if Alvarez doesn’t get beaten before then or vacate his title.
The Kirkland-Angulo fight is a WBC Light Middleweight Title Eliminator, meaning that the winner in theory should be able to get a crack at Alvarez. However, that’s not going to be the next fight for Alvarez. He’s facing Kermit Cintron on November 26th in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
After that, Alvarez will likely be facing WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in a catchweight fight in Mexico. That’s a big fight that both Golden Boy and Top Rank want. It’s a rarity when you see those two promotional companies seeing eye to eye about a fight.
The Kirkland-Angulo fight will be taking place in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Angulo can’t come to the U.S because of an immigration related problem. Kirkland is going to have to look a lot better than he did in his loss to Nobuhiro Ishida last April. Kirkland looked like a sloppy amateur in getting taken out in the 1st round in that fight. And Kirkland hasn’t looked much better in winning two quick knockouts over 2nd tier opposition since then. Kirkland has shown the same defensive problems that he did in the Ishida loss, and that’s not a good thing going into a fight against a hard puncher like Angulo.
It’s questionable whether Golden Boy will allow Angulo, a Golden Boy fighter, to take on Alvarez if Angulo beats Kirkland. I don’t see it happening because Alvarez is also promoted by Golden Boy, and they’re probably not going to want to match up a dangerous fighter like Angulo with a guy like Alvarez, who they’re trying to turn into a cash cow.
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