(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: A game Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) put in a valiant effort tonight in his fight against the bigger Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s), but the referee Tony Weeks took it out of Angulo’s hands by stopping the fight in the 10th round to give the red-haired Canelo the victory at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. It didn’t matter that Angulo was still fighting back hard, Weeks decided that he’d seen enough of the mostly one-sided fight. Canelo was ahead on the judges scorecards by the scores of 89-82, 88-83 and 89-82 at the time of the stoppage.
Angulo said after the fight “It was 20 weeks of training, it’s disappointing. I wanted to keep fighting.”
You’ve got to feel sorry for Angulo, because he spent so much time getting ready for the fight, and it was all a waste of a time for him other than the big payday of $850,000 that he fought. Angulo didn’t have his old energy. I think it took too much out of him in trying to get down to the weight limit for the fight, because there’s no other explanation for his lack of power. An Agulo from five years ago would give given Canelo all he could handle tonight, but not this version.
Angulo was weak and slow. It’s a credit to Golden Boy Promotions for picking Angulo at the right time in his career for Canelo to beat him, because if this fight had been made years ago, it might have been a different story.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer tried not to gloat too much after the fight, saying “He [Canelo] loves the MGM Grand. We’ll surely be back to Vegas too, even the Dallas Cowboys Stadium wants him to fight there. Canelo needs to fight in England because there’s surely some Irish in him. Canelo wants to fight the best. He doesn’t need to wait for anyone he just wants to entertain.”
It’s interesting that Schaefer is bragging about Canelo wanting to fight the best, because if that’s actually true, you have to wonder why Canelo still haven’t been matched against Erislandy Lara or Gennady Golovkin or even Andre Ward. As heavy as Canelo looked tonight, I don’t see why there’s no reason why Schaefer doesn’t match Canelo up against Ward. Canelo weighed 166 lbs at the secondary weigh-in on Saturday, and he obviously rehydrated after that because he sure didn’t look like 166 lb fighter during the fight.
This was easily the biggest I’ve even seen Canelo look before. He was 172 for his fight against Austin Trout last April, but tonight he looked at least 180 lbs. At that weight, there’s no excuse for Canelo not to fight Andre Ward or at least Golovkin. Instead of being matched up against slow guys like Angulo, Canelo should be fighting the best, if Schaefer is serious when he says “Canelo wants to fight the best.” I’d like to see Canelo fight a live body for his next fight, because Golden Boy can’t keep trotting out weak opponents to make Canelo look good.
Canelo hit Angulo with everything but the kitchen sink tonight, but he bravely took it and kept walking him down with nothing. I think even someone like Amir Khan would have had better power than Angulo tonight. His power was nowhere to be seen.
Comments are closed.