By Jim Dower: Alfredo Angulo (18-1, 15 KO’s) will be facing former WBA light middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (32-1, 19 KO’s) this Saturday night in a WBC light middleweight title eliminator bout on the undercard of the welterweight bout between Timothy Bradley vs. Luis Carlos Abregu at the Agua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California. Angulo, 27, holds the World Boxing Organization (WBO) light middleweight interim title since last year when he destroyed Harry Joe Yorgey in three rounds in November 2009.

Angulo, at least on paper, should have little problems with the 34-year-old Alcine, Angulo has much more power and has faced better opposition during his short 5-year career compared to the type of opponents that Alcine has fought during his 11-year pro career in Canada. To say that Alcine has been put in soft during his career is an understatement.

Many of the names on Alcine’s resume are unrecognizable to me and you have to wonder why it took so long before Alcine was put in with better fighters. In his last three fights, he’s been put in with some decent fighters with Daniel Santos, Eric Mitchell and Christophe Canclaux. The problem is Santos ended up stopping Alcine in the 6th round in one of those fights. Alcine has since won his last two fights, but not looked all that impressive in doing so.

Angulo has stopped his last three opponents since losing a 12 round decision to Kermit Cintron in May 2009. Angulo was reportedly feeling under the weather for the Cintron fight, and looked it. He had problems with the movement from Cintron and didn’t seem to know how to cut off the ring nor how to deal with Cintron’s jabs. To his credit, Angulo has looked much better since that fight, stopping Gabriel Rosado, Yorgey and Joel Julio in his last three fights. Julio attempted to use movement to keep Angulo from landing his big shots. It worked more or less for Julio, as he was able to survive in that way until the 11th round when Angulo finally caught up to him and blasted him out with a hard right hand. However, Julio fell behind in the fight because of all the movement he was doing and really was never competitive with Angulo before getting knocked out.

Alcine doesn’t move well around the ring and instead tries to make his opponents miss with upper body movement. He’s like a really slow version of Floyd Mayweather Jr. on defense. He can make you miss with the way he twists his torso, but he’s so slow and he looks really sloppy and tired-looking much of the time. He’s going to be there for Angulo to hit all night long and it’s doubtful Alcine will survive long with Angulo landing his power shots.

Prediction: Angulo by 5th round TKO.