(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Jim Dower: In a terrible mismatch, former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) stopped Alfredo Angulo (22-4, 18 KO’s) in the 10th round on Saturday night at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Referee Tony Weeks halted the fight early in the 10th round after Angulo took some brutal shots to the head.
Angulo was cut over both eyes with bad swelling at the time the fight was halted. As good Angulo was in some of his past fights, he looked weight drained and weak tonight. In contrast, Canelo was powerful both hands and he wasn’t tiring. I’d never sen Angulo look so weak before. There was nothing in his arsenal and you have to wonder if he lost too much weight in too quick of a time.
The crowd booed Canelo loudly after the fight, perhaps angry that Golden Boy Promotions had brought in such an easy opponent for him instead of bringing in someone good like Erislandy Lara for him to fight.
Canelo looked like he weighed over 180 lbs for the fight. As big as Canelo looks, it’s hard to see him being able to keep fighting at 154 for much longer.
When asked if he’d like to move up to the middleweight division to fight the winner of the Miguel Cotto vs. Sergio Martinez fight, Canelo wouldn’t answer the question. A better question would have been would he like to fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
“I could have gone another 10 rounds,” Canelo bragged after the fight. “I definitely rebounded from the Mayweather fight. I am very happy I did my job. I’m going to sit down and decide what’s best for me.”
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WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (27-0-1, 15 KO’s) dominated a limited but game Cristian Mijares (49-8-2, 24 KO’s) in winning an easy 12 round unanimous decision. The final judges scored were 119-109, 120-108, 120-108.
Mijares appeared to be in the survival mode for the entire fight, and he never really put much of an effort in to try and win the fight. Mijares moved frequently in every round, and would attempt to steal the rounds in the final 10 seconds in which he would throw a flurry of shots.
Santa Cruz was cut over the right eye in the 4th round after Mijares clashed heads with him.
“Mijares is a good boxer, but I did what I had to do to win,” Santa Cruz said after the fight. When asked if he’d like to fight contender Carl Frampton, Santa Cruz said “Yeah, of course. If the fans want it. If Frampton’s next, I want him next.”
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Former two division world champion Jorge Linares (36-3, 23 KO’s) dominated the slower and weaker Nihito Arakawa (24-4-1, 16 KO’s) in winning by a one-sided 10 round unanimous decision in their WBC lightweight title eliminator bout. The final judges scores were 98-92, 100-90, 100-90.
Linares was far to quick and powerful for Arakawa to compete with. If Arajawa had some power like Sergio Thompson and Antonio DeMarco, both of which knocked Linares out in the past, then the fight would have been a different story. Linares is a good fighter when he’s facing someone without any power to test his chin.
Both fighters were cut in the 9th round over their right eyebrows.
Linares’ body shots were devastating, and they seemed to take a lot of energy out of Arakawa.
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The big punching super featherweight Sergio Thompson (29-3, 26 KO’s) defeated Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s older brother Ricardo Alvarez (23-3-3, 14 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision to capture the vacant WBC International lightweight title. The final judges scores were 95-93, 95-93, 97-91.
Thompson knocked Alvarez down twice in the fight in dropping him in the 3rd and the 8th rounds. Alvarez fell into the ropes in the 3rd after getting hit with a jab to the head. In the 8th, Thompson knocked Alvarez down in the 8th with a hard right hand to the head.
In the 10th round, Alvarez fouled Thompson twice by first hitting him with a punch to the back of the head and then hitting him on the break when referee Vic Drakulich broke the two fighters. Thompson went down on his knees after the foul, but Drakulich made him get back up without taking points off from Alvarez.
Thompson nailed Alvarez with a lot of huge shots in the fight, and he had him hurt in the 1st round. However, by the 5th round, Thompson had tired badly. From that point on, he fought in a ragged manner. He was still able to win rounds with his huge shots, but he was much less effective than before.
Alvarez ended up with a cut under his left eye and a lot of swelling around both eyes. He appeared to have a big weight advantage over the smaller Thompson, who moved up in weight from the featherweight division to fight the light welterweight Alvarez in the lightweight division. Without the weight advantage going for him, Alvarez likely would have been knocked out.
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Other boxing action on the card:
Francisco Vargas UD 10 Abner Cotto
Joseph Diaz TKO 5 Jiovany Fuentes
Keandre Gibson TKO 4 Antonio Wong
Steve Lovett TKO 2 Francisco Molina
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