Canelo gets the victory and the boos

LAS VEGAS – Canelo Alvarez got the victory. Got the boos, too

Alvarez won the fight, but failed to win back many of his disaffected fans with a 10th-round technical knockout of Alfredo Angulo Saturday night at the MGM Grand.

Canelo’s first fight since a loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September was supposed to restore his popularity among Mexican fans, many of whom weren’t sure what to think of him after he had looked so ordinary in such a one-sided defeat.

If an arena full of boos was any indication, some of their ambivalence turned into anger Saturday night.

Fans were as frustrated as Angulo at referee Tony Weeks’ stoppage at 47 seconds of the 10th. Both of Angulo’s eyes were swollen and surrounded by darkening bruises when Weeks stepped in and said no more. Angulo complained loudly. He screamed that he should have been allowed to fight on.

“The ref was wrong,’’ Angulo said.

No, he wasn’t, Canelo said.

“The referee is the marshall,’’ Canelo (43-1-1, 31 KOs). “He stopped the fight, because he knew what was going on. I was still doing my job, working my jab. Sure, I was a little tired. But I was ready to fight on. I could have gone 10 more rounds if I had to.’’

Canelo led on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage. Judge Craig Metcalfe had it 89-82. So did Dave Moretti. On Jerry Roth’s card, it was 88-83.

Going into the fight, there was lot of talk about whether Angulo’s scarred face could withstand sustained punishment. A grotesque welt above one eye result in him losing a 10th-round TKO to Erislandy Lara, whom he knocked down twice.

Sure enough, signs that injury would again stop Angulo were there early against Canelo. In the second round, swelling began to appear above Angulo’s right eye, which Canelo quickly targeted with a jab that landed repeatedly and with a baseball bat’s deadly impact.

Late in the third and again in the fourth, the stubborn Angulo’s persistence began to pay off with occasional bursts that seemed to stun Canelo. For a fleeting moment late in the fourth, there was a look of doubt in Canelo’s eyes. Maybe, he was suffering from the fatigue that has been one of his habitual weaknesses. Or, maybe, he was just surprised to see the sight of Angulo (22-4, 18 KOs) persistently moving forward and straight at him.

Canelo backpedaled in the fifth and again in the sixth. Angulo always followed. No matter what Canelo threw at him, or how much he busted up the right eye and then the left, there was Angulo moving forward and willing to endure more punishment. In the eighth, the crowd went wild when the junior-middleweights, fighting at an official weight of 155 pounds, stood and traded. By the ninth, it was evident Angulo would be there until the end. No matter what Canelo threw at him, there he was, like the incoming tide.

Finally, Weeks did what Canelo couldn’t.

He stopped it, sparing Angulo from further punishment and maybe much more. In time, Angulo might be able to see that and be thankful that he can see at all.

Rest of Pay-Per-View Card

Los Angeles super-bantamweight Leo Santa Cruz (27-0-1, 16 KOs) was methodical and efficient, yet short of sensational, defending his acronym-sanctioned version of the title with a unanimous decision over Mexican Cristian Mijares (48-8-2, 22 KOs), who absorbed a variety of body shots and left Santa Cruz with a bloodied right eye from a fourth-round head butt.

Jorge Linares (36-3, 23 KOs), a Venezuelan living and training in Japan, kept himself in the mix for a shot at a lightweight title with superior speed and punishing blows for a unanimous decision over Nihito Arakawa (24-4-1, 16 KOs), a 135-pound Japanese fighter who endured and had a few moments, yet never a real chance.

The Alvarez family got off to a rough start on the card’s first pay-per-view bout. Canelo’s brother, lightweight Ricardo Alvarez (23-3-3, 13 KOs), suffered two knockdowns in losing a unanimous decision to fellow Mexican Sergio Thompson (29-3, 26 KOs), who took the fight on short notice. A Thompson left in the second sent Alvarez falling into the ropes. If not for the ropes, Alvarez would have fallen into a ringside seat. That was the first knockdown and a sign of things to come. A clean right in the eight floored Alvarez for the second time.

Pre-TV

Junior-lightweight Jerry Belmontes (19-3, 5 KOs) scored a one-sided decision over Australian Will Tomlinson (21-1-1, 12 KOs), who suffered a bloody gash over his right eye in seventh-round head butt; Mexico City junior-lightweight Francisco Vargas (19-0-1, 13 KOs) survived a spirited challenge for a unanimous, 10-round decision over Puerto Rican Abner Cotto (17-2, 8 KOs); former Olympian Joseph Diaz (9-0, 7 KOs) of South El Monte, Calif., cautiously, for four rounds before scoring a fifth-round super-bantamweight TKO of Puerto Rican Jovany Fuentes (5-4, 4 KOs); junior-welterweight Keandre Gibson (9-0-1, 4 KOs) landed a succession of punches that seemed to render Mexican Antonio Wong (11-8—1, 6 KOs) unconscious before he hit the canvas in a fourth-round stoppage; Australian light-heavy Steve Lovett (7-0, 6 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a second-round stoppage of Mexican Francisco Molina (2-3, 2 KOs).