Canelo-Angulo undercard takes shape

By Boxing News - 01/17/2014 - Comments

canelo665By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions has stacked the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Alfredo Angulo undercard with smaller fighters for their March 8th pay-per-view bout on Showtime from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is a risky thing for Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer to do in putting little super featherweights and lightweights as Canelo’s chief support on the card, because the Canelo vs. Angulo fight is a mismatch and it likely will be about as entertaining as Canelo’s fight with Josesito Lopez.

In the likely co feature bout, WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (26-0-1, 15 KO’s) will be facing the past his prime former IBF/WBA/WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (49-7, 24 KO’s) in what will clearly be a mismatch. Mijares, 32, hasn’t been the same fighter since he was easily beaten by Vic Darchinyan and Nehomar Cermeno. Mijares was also recently beaten by Santa Cruz victim Victor Terrazas. So the Santa Cruz-Mijares fight is a mismatch and not really worth watching.

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Canelo’s brother Ricardo Alvarez (23-2-3, 14 KO’s) will be fighting interim WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa (22-0-1, 17 KO’s) in another mismatch. The 32-year-old Ricardo Alvarez isn’t in the same class talent-wise as Figueroa and he’s going to get beat up and knocked out.

If Ricardo is able to make it to the final bell, it’ll be a miracle. I don’t think it’ll do Ricardo any good to have to soak up punishment from the 24-year-old Figueroa for 12 rounds nonstop because he has no chance of competing against the younger fighter. Figueroa is so much better than Ricardo, and it’ll be obvious in the first seconds of the fight. Ricardo’s been beaten a number of times by lesser fighters, and he even struggled to win his last fight against a very average Rod Salka.

Ricardo may be the brother Canelo, but he doesn’t have the advantages that Canelo has because he’s fighting at his right weight and not rehydrating up 15-20 lbs after weighing in the way that Canelo does when he fights at 154 against welterweights. This fight is a mismatch and it’s not worth being on a PPV card.

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Former two division world champion Jorge Linares (35-3, 23 KO’s) will be fighting recent Figueroa victim Nihito Arakawa (24-3-1, 16 KO’s). This fight isn’t a mismatch, but it’s not an interesting fight. Linares needs to fight Antonio DeMarco to avenge his knockout loss instead of fighting Arakawa. If this fight is supposed to interest boxing fans enough to want to purchase the Canelo-Angulo fight card on PPV then I think Golden Boy might be disappointed when it fails to do so. Only hardcore boxing fans know who these guys are.



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