By Joseph Hirsch: It’s hard not to like Alfredo Angulo. He is the definition of crowd pleasing, and he has given us some of the most violent knockouts in recent memory. Compare his official HBO highlight reel to those of other top fighters, and you get the picture. He has one loss, to the flaky but very talented Kermit Cintron. It’s too bad that “El Perro,” encountered that earlier Cintron, and not the one who likes to fly out of the ring; and it’s also too bad that he faced him so early in his career, when he wasn’t even fifteen fights deep into the game. Angulo has been asked about a potential rematch with Kermit, a chance to wipe the slate clean and redeem his loss, and he rightly said he would have nothing to gain from that fight. There are talks now that Cintron will be heading on to greener pastures, to a real “Who Cares” battle against German Felix Sturm.

As for Angulo, the world is his oyster at Junior-Middleweight. The recent fight between Miguel Cotto and Yuri Foreman has shaken up the rankings somewhat, and Angulo should be climbing toward the title. Most ranking systems have Alfredo in or near the top three spots, right below Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams, and Margarito, but above Kermit Cintron. So which one of the three names sounds the most appetizing?

Not Paul Williams. “The Punisher,” would not give Angulo fits so much stylistically. Williams is a great sharpshooter who knows how to use his range, but there is a passive element to his game. If the other fighter wants to bang in the pocket, Williams stops dictating the terms of the fight and obliges, most of the time. He has a high punch output, but there is no number of punches one can throw that would take Angulo off his trajectory. He would stalk his opponent to the end of the Earth, never mind the circumference of a twenty-by-twenty ring.

But southpaw Paul would stand a good chance of giving Angulo his first stoppage loss, and it doesn’t seem fair to give a man with only twenty fights a taste of that kind of defeat so early. That leaves Margarito and Cotto.

Margarito and Angulo not only hail from the same country and have similar styles, they resemble one another physically. This would look like a sort of mirror match. To simulate the action of this fight, please go outside now, pick up two rocks, and bang them against each other until they crack. This fight not happen because Margarito, somehow, after breaking the law was rewarded a fight with Pacquiao, and Angulo’s management should be fired if the fight comes to pass at this stage.

Even if Angulo won the war of constant back and forth attrition, he would accumulate far too much damage in the process. There is a good chance that he would be left with a fair amount of scar tissue, which might reopen and cause him to lose some future matches, since it’s not impossible that he could be trailing on a card where he might otherwise be headed for a knockout victory. Maybe if Margarito bucked the odds and managed to beat Manny Pacquiao, this fight might be worth it for the money and glory involved. As it stands now, there’s too much pain and suffering for not enough profit.

That leaves Miguel Cotto, and that is the wisest path to take. Cotto endured two shattering, bloody defeats before going on to beat an essentially one-legged, feather-fisted opponent via a stoppage that should have happened earlier than it did. Referee Arthur Mercante’s intercession in the Foreman-Cotto fight was so suspicious that one wonders whether or not he had bet on the underdog Yuri.

Foreman is a more talented fighter than people give him credit for, and his win over a bloated Daniel Santos said more than some care to admit. He has heart, great ring generalship, and speed. But he also has a bad knee and no power. His knockout percentage is Malignaggi-esque. Angulo has plenty of power and the will to win.

For his part, Miguel Cotto still has power, his devastating left hook to the body, and a belt. It’s doubtful however that he has the same will to win that he had earlier. It is not bad enough to declare him a shadow of his former self, but he is living on borrowed time, and on a borrowed belt. All Angulo has to do to remind him of this fact is to do what he has always done. Get in the pocket, apply pressure in the corners and along the ropes, and then stalk whenever it comes to the center of the ring.

We have all seen Cotto’s will broken. Angulo is nothing if not a will-breaker. He would turn over his heavy punches, absorb Cotto’s return fire better than Margarito did, and Angulo’s counters would be heavier than Margarito’s, with or without cement in the gloves. There is very little doubt that El Perro would get that belt.

After he got it, there would be very few dangerous opponents. If he could make a defense against Paul Williams (not probable, but possible), he could destroy mandatories and gatekeepers for more than a year before any other serious opposition presented itself. Who would take the belt from him? A thrice-beaten Cotto? The new and improved Kermit Cintron?

Many men have gotten titles with fewer fights than Angulo. It’s time for him to tap Miguel Cotto on the shoulder and politely ask for his