By Manuel Perez: Undefeated light middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo (14-0, 11 KOs) gave Ukrainian contender Andrey Tsurkan (26-4, 17 KOs) a sound beating on Saturday night, battering him in every round until the fight was mercifully stopped at the 2:27 mark in the 10th round by referee Tony Krebs in the 10th round at the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California. What originally started off as a fairly competitive fight in the first couple of rounds turned into an ugly one-sided fight by the 3rd as Tsurkan didn’t have the power or the style suited to fight a rugged, high volume, hard punching light middleweight like Angulo.
It was like watching a harder throwing version of welterweight Antonio Margarito going out and destroying another hapless opponent. However, in this case, Angulo throws far less hooks and uppercuts than Margarito, preferring to mix in straighter shots than Margarito, whom he spars with on occasion. Tsurkan, 31, took an enormous amount of punishment in the bout and by the 7th round, he looked badly beaten, his face swollen around both eyes and red from the accumulation of punishment he had sustained. The fight arguably should have been stopped at this point, or perhaps a round earlier in the 6th, for it was painfully obvious that Tsurkan, although having put in a courageous effort against Angulo, just didn’t have the power to take him out.