By Jason Kim: Light middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo (17-1, 14 KO’s) took apart fellow contender Harry Joe Yorgey (22-1-1, 10 KO’s) on Saturday night, stopping him in the 3rd round of a brutal beat down on the undercard of the Chad Dawson vs. Glen Johnson bout at the XL Center, in Hartford, Connecticut.

In the process of destroying the amateurish looking Yorgey, Angulo captured the interim WBO light middleweight title. In what was supposed to be a closely contested bout quickly turned ugly in the 2nd round when Angulo dropped Yorgey with a big right hand to the head as Yorgey stood in the corner. Angulo battered the badly over-matched Yorgey for the remainder of the 2nd round.

And in the 3rd, the slaughter continued as Angulo teed off on the inexperienced Yorgey, hitting him with one big shot after another as Yorgey foolishly stood with his back to the ropes through most of the round. Finally, Angulo put an end to the slaughter by connecting with a huge left hook to the head that snapped Yorgey’s head and eyes back.

Angulo had time to land a finishing right hand as Yorgey slid to the canvas looking like a dead man as he laid badly hurt. The fight was immediately stopped by referee Johnny Callas at 1:03 of the 3rd. At the time of the stoppage, Yorgey was again fighting out of the corner and doing a poor job of it.

Yorgey fought well through the first two minutes of the first round, landing some really big right hands to the head of Angulo. The shots had no effect on Angulo, who took them and remained calm as he threw big power shots back. Yorgey used a lot of side to side movement, obviously taking a page from the playbook of Kermit Cintron who used the same tactic to beat Angulo by a 12 round unanimous decision in May of this year.

Although the movement worked initially against Angulo, it wasn’t as effective for Yorgey because he kept stopping to land some shots of his own. By stopping to throw punches, this enabled Angulo to land some big punches of his own. In the last minute of the 1st round, Angulo closed the distance and tagged Yorgey with a volley of right hands and hard combinations to steal the round. Yorgey looked scared and confused as he was getting battered in the remaining seconds.

In the 2nd round, Yorgey started off well, hitting Angulo with some big right hands. However, Angulo wasn’t impressed with the punches and continued to fire back with hard right hands. Again, Yorgey retreated to the ropes and found himself in the corner where Angulo hurt him with four straight right hands to the head that put Yorgey down. After Yorgey got up he took bad punishment against the ropes and at one point he turned his back on Angulo and amateurishly ran out of his corner.

Angulo tagged him in the back of the head as he ran by. The referee stopped the action and gave Angulo a warning for the rabbit shot, but said nothing to Yorgey about not turning his back on his opponent. After that, Yorgey retreated once again to the ropes where he took brutal punishment in the form of a never ending flow of 1-2 combinations to the head. Somehow, Yorgey made it out of the round without going down again. However, his face was beet red and his nose was bleeding badly. He looked a lot like Kelly Pavlik in some of his more brutal fights.

In the 3rd round, Angulo immediately hurt Yorgey with a combination to the head. Angulo blasted away at Yorgey with big power shots, causing Yorgey to grab Angulo around the waist as he was falling down. The referee didn’t rule it a knockdown for some reason. After Yorgey was put back on his feet, Angulo battered him until dropping him for the final time with a left-fight combination as Yorgey was trapped in the corner.