By Jim Dower: Undefeated light middleweight contender James Kirkland (24-0, 21 KOs) faces Joel Julio (34-2, 31 KOs) on March 7th at a still to be determined location in the U.S. Kirkland, 24, is one of the most exciting fighters in the light middleweight division, known for his two-way wars with his opponents. Not inclined to the niceties of the sport, Kirkland doesn’t hesitate to go right after his opponents in the 1st round trying to take them out as fast as possible.
Because of that, he sometimes gets momentarily stunned in against his bigger punching opponents but never enough for him not to fire back with his own shots. Ranked #2 in the WBA, #3 in the IBF, #4 in the WBO and #8 in the WBC, Kirkland will likely get a title shot in 2009, likely against WBO champion Sergeii Dzinziruk.
Kirkland’s had impressive victories over Mohammad Said, Allen Conyers, Eromosele Albert, Ricardo Cortes and Brian Vera. The fight against Conyers, in November 2007, was especially exciting, as Kirkland came out brawling and was knocked down after getting hit by two hard right hands from Conyers.
Kirkland got up off the deck, and immediately went after Conyers, nailing him with powerful left hands to the head and knocking him down. Conyers got up and continued taking punishment from one side of the ring to the other, getting hit with one bomb after another from Kirkland. Finally, Conyers went down under a storm of punches from Kirkland and the fight was stopped when Conyers was unable to stand up.
In Kirkland’s last fight, he stopped Brian Vera in an 8th round TKO in November. The fight was all the more impressive considering that Vera had defeated hot middleweight prospect Andy Lee in a 7th round stoppage in March 2008.
Whereas Lee was unable to take Vera’s big hands bombs without getting badly hurt, Kirkland easily took his best punches and answered him back with huge left hands, sending him to the canvas in both the 2nd and 8th rounds. The fight was eventually stopped in the 8th round with Vera taking big time punishment against the ropes and getting his head snapped every which way from big combinations from Kirkland.
Despite losing, Vera made the fight very exciting, turning the fight into a war from the 1st until the 8th round. Unfortunately, Vera didn’t have the stamina or work rate to fight hard for three minutes of every round and was only capable of fighting hard for brief periods in the fight.
Julio, 24, is coming off of a disappointing 12-round decision loss to WBO light middleweight champion Sergiy Dzinziruk in November 2008. Julio was way over his head in this fight, unable to land his big power shots against the skillful Dzinziruk, who chose to box Julio from the outside all fight long, giving Julio few chances to land his hard power shots.
The fight was like a mirror image of Julio’s12-round decision loss to Carlos Quintana in June 2006. Quintana, like Dzinziruk, fought from the outside, jabbing frequently and presenting a constantly moving target for Julio. However, against more stationary targets like Cornelius Bundrage, Cosme Rivera and Ishe Smith, Julio proved to have too much power for them and beat them all, most by knockout.
It’s hard to say who will emerge as the winner between Kirkland and Julio, because both possess big power and like to stand and trade big shots. Julio has never lost to an opponent that stood directly in front of him like Kirkland with likely be doing, so that’s something that Julio has going for him.
Then again, Julio has never faced anyone with as much power as Kirkland and it’s difficult to say how he’ll do against a fighter that is trying to take his head off from the 1st round until the last. My guess is that Kirkland will have too much power for Julio and will end up taking him out early.
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