Saturday night at Centro de Cancun in Cancun, Mexico, Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland will lock horns in a clash that was highly anticipated two years ago. Today, it?s still a violent fight that could end at any moment, but both men have serious question marks largely due to circumstances outside of the ring.
Angulo, 20-1 with 17 knockouts, hasn?t broken a sweat in over a year and a half, when he had a tough scrap against a bouncy Joel Julio in April 2010. A one round blowout of Joachim Alcine followed before a convoluted set of immigration ? and subsequently, managerial- issues kept him out of the ring for a year. Still unable to fight in the US, Angulo faced Joseph Gomez in August, another one-round venture in which we learned nothing about how prepared he is for adversity within his new circumstances. We know little about how much rust he has to shake off in Cancun, or whether he?ll be the same tornado we saw when he wrecked skittish opponents.
But Angulo is nearly a 3 to 1 favorite for a reason. Kirkland, 29-1 with 26 knockouts, went from iffy durability before his year-and-a-half stint in jail, to nakedly exposed brittle after. While a comprehensive beating of Joel Julio in 2009 washed away memories of Kirkland getting rocked by the likes of Allen Conyers, seven months ago Nobuhiro Ishida and his eight knockouts in 31 fights recorded the sole first round KO of his career against the ?Mandingo Warrior.? That, of course, begs the question of what happens when Kirkland?s dubious whiskers are touched by a lead-fisted ?Perro.?
The Mexican slugger will be ecstatic to be in the ring against someone who isn?t running from him. Not since Cosme Rivera in February 2009 has a fighter met him in the middle of the ring, forcing him to use feet anchored by Phoenician stone through his last six fights. Although he stopped Gabriel Rosado, Harry Joe Yorgey, and Alcine within three rounds, he struggled to find Julio and lost a decision to Kermit Cintron while suffering from a stomach bug. Kirkland, a relentless southpaw, has the far quicker feet, but he won?t be moving them to circle away from danger, and the less Angulo has to move, the more comfortable he is.
