By Eric Thomas: Undefeated light middleweight contender James Kirkland (21-0, 18 KOs) faces his toughest test to date this Saturday night against the hard-punching Nigerian fighter Eromosele Albert (21-1, 10 KOs) in a bout for the vacant WBO NABO light middleweight title at the Buffalo Bills Hotel, in Primm, Nevada. Kirkland, 24, is coming off an exciting action packed bout with Allen Conyers in November 2007, a bout in which both fighters traded first round knockdowns before Kirkland’s superior power eventually took over and he was able to stop him later in the round with another knockdown. Since turning professional in 2001, it has been only in the past year that Kirkland has started to build a name for himself with victories over Billy Lyell, Ossie Duran, Mohammed Said and the aforementioned Conyers.

Most of the fights have been shown on ESPN, which has allowed a fairly substantial viewing public to see Kirkland fight. After watching his fight with Lyell, an 8th round TKO, l in February 2007, I can see why Kirkland has been getting so much television coverage. He goes right after his opponents from the opening bell in a style somewhat reminiscent of a Tough Man contest in which both fighters forgo any thoughts of defense while they try to take each other out as quickly as possible. In Kirkland’s case, he has a lot of skills and tremendous power to go with his high pressure style of fighting, which makes him much more appealing than the average fighters that are generally shown on cable.

Indeed, Kirkland is already ranked high – #4 in the WBA, #7 in the IBF and #12 in the WBO light middleweight division, and appears poised for a title shot in the near future against one of the champions. However, as much as Kirkland’s style of fighting is pleasing to watch, he has a lot of things that he needs to fix in his fame, in particular with his almost nonexistent defense. In his last fight with Conyers, in November 2007, Kirkland jumped all over him in the opening moments of the fight, driving him to the ropes and unloading upon him with tremendous shots. However, Conyers took full advantage of Kirkland not concentrating on his defense and tagged him with a big right hand that dropped Kirkland to the canvas. Kirkland got up, trying to act as if he wasn’t hurt, but he continued to take tremendous right hands from Conyers for the next 10 seconds of the round.

However, Kirkland’s power bailed him out for he was able to almost immediately drop Conyers with a big left hook to the head. Conyers got up but was in bad shape and continued to take abuse for the next minute, getting driven from one side of the ring to the other by Kirkland. A short while later, Kirkland ended the fight with a powerful left hook to the head, this time the fight was stopped by the referee.

This was a fight that Kirkland was expected to win with relative ease, yet he was forced to get up off the canvas to win the fight. That seems to suggest that Kirkland has some major work ahead of him if he wants to beat the likes of light middleweight champions Vernon Forrest, Verno Phillips, Joachim Alcine and Sergeii Dzinziruk. They would take advantage of Kirkland’s lack of defense to put him down and keep him down if he were to fight as badly against them as he did against Conyers.

In facing Albert this Saturday, Kirkland is taking a huge step up in competition. Albert has beaten Yory Boy Campas, David Banks and Daniel Edouard, and has good power and excellent boxing skills. He’s only been beaten once in his career and has shown a good chin. If Kirkland is unable to stop him early on, this fight may turn out to be an upset for Albert, who may be able to take Kirkland to the deep waters and drown him.