By Jim Dower: Light middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo (15-1, 12 KO’s) will be returning to action tonight against pressure fighter Gabriel Rosado (12-3, 7 KO’s) in a scheduled 10-round bout at the Buffalo Bill’s Star Arena, in Primm, Nevada. For the 26-year-old Angulo, he couldn’t have found a better opponent to get back on the winning track against in Rosado. This is a fighter that likes to come forward and apply a lot of pressure on his opponents to try and wear them down.
In other words, Rosado is the same kind of fighter that Angulo is, only that Rosado doesn’t have the same kind of big power that Angulo has. This should make it very easy for Angulo to find him and land his big power shots. In Angulo’s last fight, he was narrowly defeated by a Kermit Cintron in a 12 decision loss in May. Cintron used his jab, fast combinations and a lot of movement to edge Angulo, who was reportedly sick in the days leading up to the fight and not at 100% on that night.
Whether that was true or not, Angulo didn’t fight well on that night and gave up many of the earlier rounds of the fight by not pressuring Cintron enough and letting his hands go. However, in the 2nd half of the fight Angulo came on and took the fight to Cintron, chasing him around the ring and landing bombs. The fight ended up being close but Cintron clearly won it by virtue of his earlier work. Angulo didn’t look well entering the ring on that night, so I have to agree that he may have been sick.
He also uncharacteristically threw very few punches in the first six rounds of the bout other than jabs, which is totally unlike Angulo. Still, he was able to make it close with his late surge. Angulo needs to put the loss behind him and learn from it. He can’t be taking fights if he’s ill, because he’s not that great where he can beat top fighters when he’s not 100%.
Also, the loss showed problems with Angulo’s ability to cut off the ring. Cintron moved a lot in the fight and made it hard for Angulo to land his shots. This is something that Angulo has to work on if he wants to get to the next level, because he’s going to continue to face fighters like Cintron in the future and he’s going to have to be able to adapt to fighters that try to stay away from his big power shots like Cintron did.
Angulo did a great job against Cintron in the last four rounds of the fight, cutting off the ring well and making Cintron run for his life, but he needs to do this for the full 12 rounds and not just for the last half of the fight.
It’s doubtful that Rosado will move as much as Cintron did. He’s not much of a mover and will probably try to get the better of Angulo in close. Rosado doesn’t punch all that hard but is fairly fast and what you would call a clever fighter. Rosado has wins over James Moore and Kassim Ouma, outpointing both of them and making them look bad. However, Rosado was outclassed earlier this year in February by Fernando Guerrero, and not able to deal with his different punching angles, speed and movement.
Guerrero easily defeated Rosado, although the fight was entertaining because of the pressure that Rosado was putting on Guerrero. Rosado likes to throw a lot of punches, and so does Angulo. The difference here is that Angulo punches so much harder than Rosado and will likely wear him down fairly quickly unless Rosado opts to run like Cintron did.
Prediction: Angulo by 7th round stoppage
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