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HBO Boxing After Dark Recap

October 4, 2008

Pechanga Resort and Casino-Temecula, California

Junior Middleweight (154 pounds) 10-Round Match:

Alfredo Angulo (13-0, 10 KO's, 154 pounds) vs. Andrey Tsurkan (26-3, 17 KO's, 153.75 pounds)

Angulo had a strong amateur boxing career that culminated when he represented his native Mexico at 165 pounds at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.

The Mexican Olympian is currently the sparring partner of 147-pound title holder Antonio Margarito. The work is reportedly forcing him to be an all action boxer in competition.

The Coachella, California resident's last match was a technical knockout victory at 2:48 of round 5 over Richard Gutierrez on May 17, 2008 at Buffalo Bill's Star Arena in Primm, Nevada.

Angulo is unranked by The Ring, and the number 12 ranked boxer in the world at 154 pounds by boxrec.com.

Tsurkan was born in Lugansk, Ukraine and could have represented Ukraine in boxing at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. However, the Ukrainian Olympic team was so poor after they left the Soviet Union when the empire collapsed that it was unable to afford to send him to the Olympics. Wladimir Klitschko took home a gold medal in boxing at the Atlanta Olympiad for Ukraine, but he had to find a sponsor to pay all of his expenses for the games.

Now residing in the Bronx, New York, Tsurkan's last 5 matches have all been against solid competition within driving distance of New York. The short road trips have netted Tsurkan a recorda 5-1 record during that stretch with 4 knockout victories and a narrow 10-round split decision loss to the highly touted Yuri Foreman on December 6, 2007 at the Paradise Theatre in the Bronx.

Tsurkan's last match a technical knockout victory at 1:17 of round 8 over Jesse Feliciano on April 25, 2008 at the renamed Utopia Paradise Theatre.

Tsurkan is unranked by The Ring, and the number 20 ranked boxer in the world at 154 pounds by boxrec.com.

At 26-years-old, Angulo is 4 years younger then the 30-year-old Tsurkan. Angulo has the height advantage standing 5' 10.5" tall, while Tsurkan stands 5' 8" tall. The 2004 Olympian has the reach advantage with a 23.5" arm length compared to the 22.5" arm length of Tsurkan. Angulo will be the heavier boxer in the ring having unofficially rehydrated to 165 pounds. Tsurkan has unofficially rehydrated to 164 pounds approaching match time. Both boxers will employ the orthodox stance.

All of the official judges for this match scoring at ringside are from California. The referee is Tony Crebs.

Going back and countering, Angulo wins round 1, 10-9. Lederman scores round 1 for Angulo, 10-9. Angulo wins round 2 easily, 10-9. The Mexican Olympian keeps pouring on the offense in the last 30 seconds of rounds to clearly win rounds that had been somewhat close. Lennox Lewis, who is doing color commentary of this event for HBO, has pointed out the Angulo has terrible footwork backing up. Angulo can be knocked down with a mediocre punch backing up, if it catches him at the right time, because the boxer's feet are too close together. The Mexican Olympian would not necessarily be hurt by the punch, but would lose the points on the judges' scorecards from a knockdown. During round 2, Tsurkan developed heavy swelling under his right eye. It is not a problem now and he has an excellent cut man, therefore it should not be a significant problem in this match. Apparently, Angulo was cut in round 2 and the referee is ruling that cut was caused by an unintentional clash of heads. Lederman scores round 2 for Angulo, 10-9. The cut on Angulo is outside his right eye. Angulo brutalized Tsurkan in round 3 winning the round so decisively it was a borderline, 10-8. However, Tsurkan landed enough punches that Angulo will only win round 3, 10-9. After round 3, Tsurkan has severe swelling around both eyes. The punches Tsurkan landed in round 3 all seemed to target the cut near the right eye of Angulo and it is bleeding heavily. After 3 rounds Angulo leads on my scorecard, 30-27. In round 3 according to CompuBox, Angulo brutalized Tsurkan landing an astonishing65 of the 138 total punches he threw in the round. Lederman scores round 3 for Angulo, 10-9 and has him ahead in the match after 3 rounds, 30-27.

Angulo dominates round 4 taking it, 10-9. At this point Tsurkan looks very bad. Tsurkan's legs do not seem to be moving properly. He is walking very straight legged and moving very stiff. His corner needs to be thinking about stopping this soon and the referee has to also have just about seen enough. Lederman scores round 4 for Angulo, 10-9. Angulo wins round 5 on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. Tsurkan is not answering his corner man back well after round 5. They should really think about stopping this. Angulo has never been past 6 rounds, but Tsurkan looks awful. The Mexican Olympian dominates round 6 to take it on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. The cut above Angulo's right eye has pretty much stopped bleeding. Tsurkan has bad swelling around both of his eyes to thelevel he may have problems seeing at this point. Angulo leads on Lederman and my scorecard after 6 rounds, 60-54.

Angulo has Tsurkan wobbling on the walk back to his corner following round 7. This match needs to be stopped. Angulo wins round 7 on everyone's scorecard, 10-9. Angulo deals out a disturbing amount of damage to Tsurkan in winning round 8, 10-9. This match has gone on way too long, and after round 8 the doctor steps into the ring on his own volition to check on Tsurkan. This match has become hard to watch. The doctor is apparently going to let this continue, but Tsurkan's corner is now warning their charge they may stop it. Round 9 ended with Tsurkan eating a prolonged combination from Angulo that had the boxer, again walking awkwardly back to his corner. The referee should have waved it off there. This is getting really sickening to watch, and the commentators on HBO are openly talking about this being the type of beating that gets a boxer killed. Angulo wins round 9, 10-9. The inhumane qualities in Tsurkan's corner has them sending their boxer out for the final round despite what they said earlier. The doctor took a look at Tsurkan in the corner after round 9 and ignoring everything he had seen in the ring said the boxer was good to continue. Through the first 9 rounds, Angulo has averaged throwing more then 120 total punches per round and landing more then 40 total connects per round. Angulo passed up the number of punches that caused the doctor to end Martinez' night after 8 rounds, before the end of round 6. Lederman figures in the savagery of the beating to his scoring of round 9 and gives it to Angulo, 10-8.

Finally, after Tsurkan ate practically 1 full minute of unanswered punches with Lampley yelling repeatedly at Tsurkan from the broadcast position to "Go Down!" Tsurkan's corner threw in the towel. The referee should have moved in 45 seconds before Tsurkan's cornerdecided to throw in the towel and with Tsurkan being beaten helplessly against the ropes the referee was not even taking a closer look with the inclination to stop the match. In addition, Tsurkan's corner threw in the towel about 7 seconds and 7 landed punches before the referee stopped the match. This match was disgusting to watch knowing what can happen in matches like this. The announcers are literally predicting Tsurkan's death at this point. Saying letting Tsurkan be brave enough to get beat to death is not good for Tsurkan and that boxers who have beaten their opponents to death are never the same afterwards. This match was a complete failure on the part of everyone who was in charge of protecting Tsurkan. The HBO announcers are rightfully incensed at the abomination they have just watched.*

The official outcome from Jake Gutierrez: at the request of the blue corner the referee has stopped the contest at 2:27 (really more like 2:20) of round 10 making the winner by technical knockout and still undefeated, Alfredo "El Perro" Angulo. The win moves Angulo to 14-0 with 11 of those wins coming by way of knockout.

The final punchstat numbers have Angulo landing 400 of the 1211 total punches he threw, for a 33% total connect percentage. That works out to Angulo landing on average exactly 40 punches per round which is borderline inhuman. Angulo landed 296 of the 607 power punches he threw, for an amazing 49% power connect percentage. That means Angulo was hitting Tsurkan with a sadistic (in that he was allowed to) 30 power punches per round on average. Tsurkan landed 143 of the 729 total punches he threw, for a 20% total connect percentage. The Bronx resident landed 76 of the 360 power punches he threw, for a 21% power connect percentage.

Angulo was great in this match. Tsurkan is not an average opponent that is brought in to lose, but a quality boxer. Angulo is probably 1 or 2 matches away from a title shot. The 154-pound division is bereft of big names and big match-ups. Therefore, finding quality opponents for an action boxer that will stand in front of opponents should not be the hardest thing. His people say they want Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., next. However, Chavez is being too well protected to ever be matched up with Angulo.

Tsurkan showed he was too durable for his own good in this match. For his own safety he needs to be held out of competition for at least a year. Beatings like this stay with a boxer for the rest of their life. After a prolonged break from the sport, when he recovers Tsurkan will need to reassess what he wants to do. Tsurkan is not a championship caliber boxer and putting him in against top 10 boxers appears to be dangerous to his health. If Tsurkan can accept boxing that next tier of boxers on ESPN, he can probably have a successful career when he resumes boxing.

This match was a sickening beating. The state should look into how that was allowed to go so long and look into the referee and doctor.

*The HBO announcers should be outraged when they see a boxer taking a beating in a match like Tsurkan did in the second match. Part of being a sports announcer/journalist should not be watching competitors die in front of you. There are other areas of journalism where watching people die is part of the job, primarily war correspondent. Despite its frequent hyperbolic use to describe wrestling, boxing, and other combat sporting type events these are not real wars. People are not supposed to die here. This is a boxing match, not a battle or a war. Battles and wars are not entertaining affairs to be televised for the masses. In the early 1990's, Sports Illustrated had a policy that banned its writers from using the term war or battle or making any overt reference to war terminology. For example, writers in SI were not allowed to describe a good match up between offensive and defensive lines in a football game as a "battle in the trenches" as it is frequently called. It was SI's theory that there are real battles and real wars in the world and to trivialize them by comparing them to something as silly as offensive line play in a college football game is insensitive. Additionally, when people think about the analogy it makes no sense and is inaccurate. What part of 5 people trying to block 4 people, so a man carrying a ball can go forward resembles actual trench warfare? They believed war analogies were used hyperbolically by writers who did not bother to come up with more accurate descriptive terms.

UFC has gotten itself in a lot of trouble with their similar loose use of terminology and it has probably contributed to their problems getting the sport sanctioned. By calling their competitors fighters, instead of mixed martial artists and their matches fights, instead of mixed martial arts contests, they have allowed people to label them as a barbaric sport. The gladiator intro on every show only plays into that. Despite UFC's frequent love of comparing their competitors to modern day gladiators, there is a huge difference. No one in the history of UFC ever died during a match. To my understanding, the only point of gladiator matches was to see someone die. This creates an easy image to someone who does not know better that the UFC is largely bloodsport. Fighters fighting in a cage does not sound gentlemanly to most politicians.If it were described as mixed martial artists competing in a mixed martial arts contest, it would not make every person who does not know about it think of a drunken street brawl. By calling competitors mixed martial artists politicians would not instantly be alarmed. It would give promoters the chance to explain that the cage is a safety measure, before a politician had already decided on the issue. These are the reasons that in these recaps the term boxer and boxing match/match are consistently used over fight and fighter.