By Eric Thomas: Unbeaten junior middleweight James Kirkland (25-0, 22 KO’s) will be making his first appearance in over a year on December 11th when he takes on a still to be determined opponent on the fight card of Amir Khan vs. Marcos Maidana at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kirkland, 26, hasn’t fought since stopping Joel Julio in the 6th round in March 2009. Kirkland has been in prison for the past year and only recently was released to a halfway house. Dan Rafael is reporting the boxing news about Kirkland fighting on the undercard of Khan-Maidana.
That’s at least one fight that we’re aware of on that card, which is still not fully known at this early point. Kirkland has fought his entire career at junior middleweight. However, while in prison his weight has gone over 170. It’s going to be interesting to see where Kirkland fights at. He may be too big to fight at 154 now without draining himself of water weight and muscle to get to the junior middleweight limit. Kirkland might not be as effective at middleweight or even super middleweight than he was at 154.
At that weight, the 5’9″ Kirkland is more than a handful for most of the fighters in the division, but middleweight and above, Kirkland might be much more of an average fighter. Guys like Sergio Martinez, Paul Williams, Dimitri Pirog and Felix Sturm likely wouldn’t be troubled by Kirkland’s high pressure fighting style in the same way that the junior middleweights were. Kirkland, if he wants to be successful, may have to find a way to squeeze back down into the junior middleweight division if he wants to dominate like he was before.
He’s not blessed with blazing hand speed and an ability to leap around to change angles like Manny Pacquiao. Kirkland is a guy that just comes right at his opponents like Mike Tyson and tries to mow them down. Again, it might work at junior middleweight but not at middleweight and super middleweight. I think Kirkland would be much more average at those weights.
Comments are closed.