By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO lightweight champion Brandon Rios think Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) in could be in for a tough time in his fight against James “Mandingo Warrior” Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) in their fight on May 9th next month at the Minute Maid Park, Houston, Texas, USA. Rios still sees the Kirkland fight as a dangerous one for the 24-year-old Canelo despite the fact that Kirkland hasn’t fought in over a year, and has put on a lot of weight with his time out of the ring.
Rios expects Kirkland to be the same dangerous fighter that has always been. That might be asking a lot of a fighter who has only fought a handful of times in the last four years of his career.
On the face of it, Canelo looks to have been matched against someone that his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions think he can beat. They didn’t match him again with Erislandy Lara to clear up the controversy surrounding the decision that Canelo won last year in July.
Golden Boy didn’t match Canelo against the likes of the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade or Vanes Martirosyan. Those guys are at least fighting on a regular basis.
“It’s a dangerous fight for Canelo, Kirkland can crack. If he catches him with that one shot he can hurt Canelo, but we don’t know how Canelo’s jaw has been taking a punch from a real puncher,” Rios said via esnewsreporting.com. “I know without Anne Wolfe, he’s not the same James Kirkland as he was before. Anne Wolfe gives him that push and that little drive you know, he’s used to that in the corner.”
I think this is going to be a dangerous fight for Canelo only if he chooses to punch with Kirkland in the early going. Once the fight goes past six rounds, the ring rusty Kirkland is very likely going to run out of gas and either get stopped on his feet or dropped like he was against the light hitting Nobuhiro Ishida in 2011. Ishida knocked Kirkland out in the 1st round after dropping him three times. Kirkland’s chin issues obviously made him a great opponent for Canelo to face. That and the inactivity that Kirkland has had.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQTSqdGdZI
The Kirkland fight seems to have been made more on his name for what he was in the past when he first started coming up the ranks rather than what he’s done in the last four years of his career. He hasn’t done anything that would suggest that he’s going to win against Canelo.
It would be a real shocker if Canelo loses to Kirkland because Golden Boy is trying to keep Canelo winning so that they can get him a fight against Miguel Cotto, as well as a fight against Manny Pacquiao and a rematch against Floyd Mayweather Jr. It’s going to be tough to make a case that Canelo deserves fights against Cotto, Mayweather and Pacquiao if he gets knocked out or outpointed by Kirkland.
It’s going to be tough for Kirkland to get a decision against Canelo, because we’ve see Austin Trout and Lara come out on the losing end in fights that either appeared to be a draw or a close win for those fighters. The thing is Canelo was given a lopsided win over Trout in a fight that was anything but one-sided. Many boxing fans felt that Canelo lost to Lara. The ones that didn’t in many cases saw it as a draw. Kirkland needs to be looking for a knockout against Canelo if he doesn’t want to put himself at risk of losing the fight by a controversial decision. I’m not sure that a rusty and out of shape Kirkland is going to be able to make it the full 12 rounds though.
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