By Jake Donovan
So much for struggling to get past that first loss.
Just three months after the worst performance of his young career against Kermit Cintron, 2004 Mexican Olympic participant Alfredo Angulo showed no ill-effects of a mentally weakened fighter, scoring a convincing second round stoppage of Gabriel Rosado.
The bout served as the main event of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights telecast, aired live from Buffalo Bill’s Star Arena in Primm, Nevada.
There were plenty of whispers that the book was out on how to handle Angulo, who has unfairly earned a reputation as a one-dimensional brawler. Angulo instead put those talks to rest, hardly missing a beat in steamrolling Rosado, becoming the first to stop the junior middleweight spoiler, and doing so in dominant fashion.
Rosado’s early game plan was to touch and move, pumping one-twos then immediately moving out of harm’s way. He enjoyed mild success in the opening round, as Angulo was economical with his attack. More attention was instead paid to finding ways to cut off the ring and limit his opponent’s movement.
As the round wore on, Angulo managed to inch closer and closer. Rosado’s punch output decreased as he became more conscious of the potential incoming.
His worst fears were realized in round two. Angulo was in his face the moment the round began; Rosado had nothing to keep the heat off of him. He instead turned to the ref for help, allowing himself to get tangled up with Angulo believing a break was forthcoming.
What he received instead was a compact right hand to the jaw and a trip to the canvas. He immediately protested, insisting that the punch came on the break. Ignored by the Philly-based Boricua was the sport’s oldest rule: protect yourself at all times.
It was something he failed to do for the balance of the bout. The good news was that it wouldn’t last much longer.
The second knockdown of the round came mere seconds later. Angulo began the bumrush with a right hand upstairs, before coming back with a left hook to the body and head, followed by a final right before Rosado collapsed in a heap.
He beat the count for a second time but once again quickly found himself under siege, ducking between the ropes in a last ditch effort to avoid further incoming. The tactic merely prolonged the inevitable; consecutive right hand-left hook combinations sent Rosado to the deck for a third time, prompting referee Russell Mora to wave off the bout.
The official time 2:13 was of the second round.
Much as he did after the first knockdown, Rosado vehemently protested Mora’s decision to stop the contest. That he continued to complain for several minutes after the fight lent validity to his verbal outburst; unfortunately, he needed that very spirit in between the bells.
Angulo clearly had that fighting spirit in him, violently resuming his winning ways as he advances to 16-1 (13KO). He hardly misses a beat since the May loss to Cintron, as he is set to return in the televised co-feature slot for the November 7 HBO card headlined by Chad Dawson’s rematch with Glen Johnson.
The best stretch of Rosado’s young career comes to a crashing halt, as he falls to 12-4 (7KO). He entered the fight having scored a mild upset over badly faded Kassim Ouma, but proved his worth with impressive showings against undefeated middleweights Jamie Moore and Fernando Guerrero in back to back fights.
Rosado upset Moore last summer on ESPN2, and came damn close to repeating the feat against Guerrero earlier this year, dropping the Dominican early in their ESPN2 main event this past February before falling behind in the second half and dropping a narrow decision in Guerrero’s hometown.
There was no threat of an upset tonight, though there’s no shame in Rosado going out the way he did. There will be plenty of other chances to resume his spoiler ways.
It just wasn’t meant to be against Angulo, who had every intention of proving that the May debacle against Cintron was nothing more than an aberration.
TELEVISED UNDERCARD
Anthony Dirrell is presently enjoying one of the more remarkable comebacks in recent boxing history. The journey continued in the televised co-feature, as he had his way with game but overmatched Alfredo Contreras, stopping him the seventh round of their scheduled eight.
Only a year removed from recovering from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Dirrell tries to make up for last time, fighting for the sixth time in ten months since returning to the ring last October.
The first few rounds were fought at a deliberate pace, with Dirrell wasting a lot of time by posing and showboating while flipping back and forth between southpaw and orthodox stance.
His tactics hardly set well with older brother and 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Andre Dirrell, who was at ringside and screaming at baby bro to buckle down and start fighting.
Younger brother paid attention. Anthony sat on his punches more often in the fourth, landing several heavy jabs and left hands out of the southpaw stance.
After allowing Contreras to get comfortable with one style, Dirrell mixed it up in the fifth. Speed became the dominant aspect of his attack, impressively scoring with jabs, straight lefts and right hooks in succession.
Dirrell took the attack downstairs midway through the round, banging away at Contreras’ body before coming back up top with a flurry of headshots that rocked but never quite dropped the Mexican, who accepted the fight on very late notice.
Action slowed to a crawl in the sixth, but picked up in the seventh and what would be the final round. Dirrell remained mostly in the conventional stance, scoring repeatedly with right hands and left hooks. Contreras quickly transformed from opponent to punching bags, absorbing way too many headshots before his corner mercifully stopped the contest.
The official time was 2:32 of the seventh round.
Dirrell improves to 18-0 (15KO) with the win, his sixth straight since overcoming a bout with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma that forced him out of the ring for nearly two years.
Contreras falls to 10-6-1, losing his second straight.
Promising junior lightweight prospect Archie Ray Marquez’ televised debut also saw the Albuquerque (NM) native go the distance for the first time in his pro career. It was the only surprise of his bout, dominating Sergei Ganjelashvili in their four-round televised opener.
Scores were 40-36 across the board.
There were no knockdowns in the bout, but certainly not for a lack of trying on the part of Marquez. Plenty of left hooks and uppercuts found their way home on a game Ganjelashvili, who fights out of Key West, Florida but was born and raised in the Republic of Georgia.
Marquez mixed it up between boxing and banging in the first two rounds, fighting at a measured pace while throwing and landing a variety of punches. Ganjelashvili tried to pick up the pace in the third, but paid a heavy price late in the round as Marquez erupted with an assortment of head shots after pounding away at the body earlier in the round.
By the fourth and final round, Ganjelashvili seemed content with trying to last the distance,
Offering more holding than punching. Marquez never stopped throwing, but was unable to maintain the necessary distance to maximize his punching power and truly close the show.
Instead, he leaves with a well-earned shutout to improve to 5-0 (4KO). The win was his second in just under a month, after having spent the previous nine months on the sidelines.
Ganjelashvili sees his record evened up at 4-4-1; he is winless in his last three bouts.
The show was presented by Gary Shaw Productions.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .
