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Pacquaio's knockout of Hatton more picturesque than Angulo's KO of Yorgey
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Manny Pacquiao’s knockout of Ricky Hatton was beautiful. Alfredo Angulo’s knockout of Harry Joe Yorgey was not. Too many boxing fans can’t tell the difference..
On the day David Haye won the WBA heavyweight title and Chad Dawson proved he’s the best light heavyweight in the world, Angulo’s third-round knockout of Yorgey nearly stole the headlines. For the wrong reasons.
Whereas Hatton was still menacing Pacquiao in their May 2 bout when the thunderous left cross from nowhere knocked Hatton senseless, Angulo had knocked Yorgey down at the end of the second round of their junior middleweight bout Saturday on HBO and had landed several power shots in the third round.
Yorgey gamely poked back to discourage referee Johnny Callas from stopping the fight. But it was evident long before the knockout that Yorgey was defenseless and this fight was over.
There is a tendency these days to stop the fight a couple of punches too soon, Meldrick Taylor’s loss to Julio Cesar Chavez the supreme example.
This wasn’t one of those. By the time Angulo, one of the most heavy-handed punchers in boxing, teed up the anticlimactic one-two, about a minute into the round, Yorgey was a sitting duck, and his journey to the canvas was horrifying.
Not everyone agrees, as this comment on eastsideboxing.com suggests:
“Great knockout. Nice to see a ref let a fight go to its natural conclusion!!! KO of the Year!”
Well, pal, the “natural conclusion” many viewers feared they were seeing is an unavoidable aspect of boxing for which everyone involved signs on and which everyone but the most jaded of fans wants to avoid. This is the second time in 13 months Angulo has been put in this situation. He doesn’t need the money shot to prove he’s a stud.
A great knockout can be very satisfying, as Pacquiao illustrated against Hatton, Rocky Marciano demonstrated against Jersey Joe Walcott, Sugar Ray Robinson demonstrated against Gene Fullmer . . .Floyd Patterson demonstrated against Ingemar Johansson. . . .
But when a sizeable part of the audience is screaming, “stop the fight, stop the fight!” the ensuing knockout simply cannot be the KO of the Year. I’ve seen only one fatal knockout on TV – Emile Griffith over Benny “Kid” Paret -- and that wasn’t KO of the Year either.
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