By Jason Kim: After two long years, former heavyweight contender Kirk Johnson (36-2-1, 26 KOs) will be making a comeback on February 7th against journeyman Dan Sheehan (11-36, 5 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round bout at the Masonic Temple, in Norfolk, Virginia. Johnson, 36, hasn’t seen action since March 2006, a bout in which Johnson dislocated his knee in the 7th round, resulting in the fight being stopped and a no decision given.
Johnson’s once promising career went into a free fall after being disqualified in the 10th round for throwing repeated low blows in his fight against John Ruiz in July 2002. Johnson had been warned on several occasions in the bout, and docked points for throwing low blows in the 1st, 4th and 7th round, ending with the 10th round disqualification.
Shortly after this fight, Johnson was stopped in the 2nd round by Vitali Klitschko in December 2003. Johnson didn’t help himself in that fight by coming into the bout at a career high of 260 pounds, twenty pounds overweight and looking bloated. Instead of focusing on boxing the taller, harder punching Klitschko, Johnson tried to trade shots with him in the first round.
He made it out of the round but took a lot of hard chopping right hands from Vitali and spending the last part of the round against the ropes taking big shots to the head. In the 2nd round, Johnson continued throwing big shots and missing by a mile with most of them.
Vitali continued stalking Johnson, landing to the head with hard overhand rights and left hooks to Johnson’s soft midsection. Near the end of the round, Johnson retreated to the ropes and took a series of hard combinations from Vitali ending with a left-right combination that sent Johnson down.
Johnson got up and continued getting hit with heavy shots against the ropes, ending with a left-right combination that sent Johnson down for the 2nd and final time in the round. The fight was then stopped, and along with it much of the air out of Johnson’s career. After that, Johnson limped along, winning two fights over Gilbert Martinez and Yanqui Diaz.
Perhaps Johnson’s best win over his career was his stunning 4th round TKO over Oleg Maskaev in October 2000. After appearing to lose the first three rounds to Maskaev, Johnson suddenly hurt Maskaev with some big looping right hands as Maskaev stood with his back to the ropes. Johnson then landed a flurry of shots, sending a badly hurt Maskaev out of the ring.