Perhaps one of the best prospects in the junior middleweight division, undefeated James Kirkland (21-0, 18 KOs) survived a first round knockdown to comeback and obliterate Allen Conyers (11-3, 9 KOs) at 2:56 of the 1st round on Friday night at the the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California. Kirkland, 23, immediately opened up on Conyers in the 1st round, driving him to the ropes with left hooks and straight right hands.
Conyers, however, a noted hard puncher with power almost the same as Kirkland, maneuvered off the ropes and landed several hard right hands as Kirkland chased him around the ring. After being cornered once again by Kirkland, who was clearly not thinking of defense, Conyers tagged Kirkland with two monstrous right hands, dropping Kirkland to the canvas. At first, Kirkland used his glove from going down but after straightening up for a second, he collapsed to the canvas back first. Upon getting up, Kirkland was immediately ready to continue pressing the attack and had to wait for several moments while the referee wiped off his gloves and checked to see if he was okay.
However, as soon as the action continued, Kirkland was all over Conyers, hitting him with repeated left hands, one of which stunned Conyers and dropped him to the canvas. Conyers made it up on weak legs and could barely stand. The referee, however, let it continue, despite Conyers’ legs being gone. From there, Kirkland began flurrying on Conyers, who staggered from one side of the ring to the other, occasionally ripping off some huge shots of his own but with little effect on Kirkland. Finally, with only seconds to go before the end of the round, Kirkland knocked Conyers down with a huge right hand.
Previous to the knockdown, Conyers was badly staggering around the ring while absorbing terrible punishment. Upon trying to get up after the knock down, Conyers immediately fell back down on the canvas as his legs were completely shot for the time being. Seeing this, referee Ray Corona moved in and stopped the bout at 2:56 of the 1st round.