Photo credit: HG Boxing. Leopoldo Gonzalez – By Jason Kim: Unbeaten welterweight contender Saul Alvarez (33-0-1, 25 KO’s) was much too powerful for Argentinean light middleweight Luciano Leonel Cuello (26-2, 12 KO’s), stopping him in the 6th round of a one-sided bout on Saturday night to capture the WBC Silver middleweight title at the Arena VFG, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Alvarez, 19, knocked the over-matched 26-year-old Cuello down in the 1st and the 2nd rounds with hard left hands.
In the 6th round, with Cuello taking bad punishment, Alvarez put him out of his misery with some heavy shots to the body and the head, which promoted referee Len Koivisto to halt the one-sided fight at 1:23 of the round. Cuello was in danger of being knocked out in every round, as Alvarez was loading up some really big punches and connecting cleanly.
When Cuello would try to return fire, Alvarez showed good skills in backing up and throwing left hooks while in retreat. Alvarez showed good power even when backing up and was able to catch Cuello repeatedly as he would attempt to come forward. Alvarez’s defense was still rather wide open. He was hit by some nice shots from Cuello and had problems blocking the incoming. However, Alvarez’s offense was his defense for the most part, and when he was throwing shots, Cuello couldn’t do much of his own in terms of getting his offense going.
Alvarez did a good job of dominating Cuello, who fought Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. almost to a standstill last year in a narrow 10 round decision defeat to the young Chavez Jr. Alvarez doesn’t have Chavez’s hand speed, but he does appear to have a slightly better right hand than Chavez does. However, Chavez clearly punches harder with his left than Alvarez, who doesn’t have much of a left at all.
All of Alvarez’s power is from his right hand, and he’s going to need to develop his left more if he wants to beat the better fighters in the welterweight and light middleweight divisions. Right now, I see Alvarez having big problems against fighters like Mike Jones, Alfredo Angulo, Sergei Dzinziruk, Miguel Cotto, Cory Spinks, Sergio Martinez, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Andre Berto. I also think Chavez Jr. would give him problems as well due to his better movement, faster hands and much left hook. That would be a real war and it would be interesting to see who would come out on top.
Alvarez is ranked #3 WBC, #4 WBO and #5 WBA. With that kind of ranking, Alvarez’s promoter is going to need to decide whether to hold him back or let him go after one of the welterweight champions. He may be ready at this point. He punches hard, at least with his right hand, but he’s slow and gets hit too much. Berto would eat him alive, as would Pacquiao and possibly even welterweight champions Vyacheslav Senchenko and Jan Zaveck.
Alvarez will be fighting again on the undercard of the Shane Mosley vs. Sergio Mora bout on September 18th at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. This should give Alvarez some good visibility among boxing fans, because this fight will be seen by a lot of people in the United States.
In other action on the card:
Daniel Sandoval TKO 2 Ramon Alvarez
Irma Sanchez UD 10 Soledad Macedo
Tomoki Kameda UD 10 Arturo Camargo
Rigoberto Alvarez KO 1 Alfredo Trevino
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