Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Nevada, Canelo Alvarez pounded overmatched Alfredo Angulo, leading to a welcome 10th round stoppage?
Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Nevada, Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KOs), from Juanacatl?n, Jalisco, Mexico, stopped overmatched Alfredo ?El Perro? Angulo (22-4, 18 KOs), from Coachella, California, by way of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, at :43 of the 10th, without Angulo winning a round.
Fighting out of the blue corner in yellow trunks with black trim, Canelo came into the fight as the betting and fan favorite. In part because the fight was on pay-per-view, in part because hope springs eternal, many thought the fight might be competitive.
Unfortunately, tragically, painfully, it wasn?t even close.
Angulo, fighting out of the red corner in black trunks trimmed in silver, had next to nothing to fight off Canelo. El Perro started slowly, and he ended slowly, eating hard punches repeatedly throughout the fight, which was mercifully stopped by referee Tony Weeks before something terrible happened.
The tenor of the fight was established in round one. Canelo was fast. Canelo was strong. He was driving Angulo back, forcing him to fight off his back foot, and began throwing bombs at the opening bell. His left hook, straight right and uppercut landed seemingly at will. All Angulo was doing was absorbing punishment. The few times he let his hands go, his punches were slower than slow, lacked snap, and there was no game plan that was visible or to speak of. The round was so one-sided it could have been scored 10-8. That?s how bad it was.
Angulo?s trainer, Virgil Hunter, implored him between rounds to ?Wake up.? Not that it did much good. Canelo?s confidence was already soaring. His movement and diversified attack was more than Angulo bargained for. He offered little resistance and no defense against Canelo?s bombardment. After three rounds, Canelo had landed a whopping 64% of his power punches, and El Perro?s face was busting up.
Canelo continued to dish it out. He rocked Angulo. He stunned Angulo. He took Angulo places he might not want to revisit anytime soon. Boxing can be great when fights are competitive. But at the end of four rounds, the fight felt less like a contest than a human sacrifice.
Canelo slowed down somewhat in round five. All that punching may have worn him out. But he couldn?t miss Angulo, whose head was rocking back and forth, whose eyes were swelling, and who followed his opponent around the ring, obedient like a beaten dog.
Between rounds five and six, Virgil Hunter offered words of encouragement. ?C?mon son,? he said. ?You?ve got him. Keep your hands up. He?s only throwing one punch at a time. He?s getting tired.? I?d have said the same thing if I were in his position.
The sixth was more of the same. Angulo was getting slaughtered. When the round was over Canelo?s corner told him, ?He can take a punch. This guy can take it.? And so he can. And so he did.
At that point Angulo had landed 52 of 471 punches, or 11%. What more needs to be said?
It continued in the seventh. It continued in the eighth. Angulo?s face was a mess. He was walking straight in. He was a big target. He was a sitting duck. No one can question his heart. No one can question his bottom. Round eight was Angulo?s best round of the fight, he landed 27 of 100 punches, but it wasn?t enough to win the round, or to make the thrashing any more enjoyable.
Angulo was little more than a human punching bag in round nine. There were moments when he fought back, but they were fleeting moments, futile moments, and an early stoppage seemed not just likely but desirable.
That desire, unlike the desire that fighters be evenly matched, was satisfied just seconds into round 10. At the same time as I asked myself how much punishment is too much punishment, Tony Weeks jumped in and waved off the fight, inciting the expected mini-scandal.
The crowd, testosterone-driven and bloodthirsty, howled its displeasure. Angulo and his corner objected to the stoppage. He hadn?t gone down. He wanted to keep fighting. Fighting is what he does and fighting is what he knows. It would have taken a miracle for Angulo to KO Canelo, but miracles happen in boxing, however infrequently, and maybe a miracle was in the cards. But we?ll never know since Tony Weeks did what he?d been hired to do by acting responsibly on the fighter?s behalf.
If only Golden Boy and Showtime had been that conscientious.
