By Chris Williams: With unbeaten junior middleweight James Kirkland (25-0, 22 KO’s) now out of prison and training for a fight on the undercard of the Amir Khan vs. Marcos Maidana fight on December 11th, it’s a fight that kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito bout on November 13th.

Pacquiao-Margarito are fighting for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title but that’s kind of a useless trinket that they’re both fighting for because unless one of them are taking on and beating Kirkland, the guy that’s considered to be the best fighter in the division, it’s like they’re fighting for a paper title. Kirkland, before going to prison a year ago, was considered by many boxing fans to be the best fighter in the junior middleweight division by far.

Although he was still unproven at the time that he went to prison last year after an arrest on a weapons charge, he looked like the real deal in taking out Joel Julio. Kirkland has power, speed an aggressive fighting style that’s similar to a young Mike Tyson.

Dan Rafael quoted Kirkland as making this statement upon his release from prison today: “I apologize to all my friends, family, team members and fans for everything that happened. I can’t wait to get back in the ring and pick up where I left off.”

Depending on how quickly his promoters Golden Boy Promotions plan on moving up to top opposition again, Kirkland could be dominating the junior middleweight division within a short period of time. Sadly, there’s not too many fighters for him to compete with in the division. Kirkland may have to move up to middleweight if he wants to get fights.

It’s highly unlikely that Margarito, Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and some of the other top junior middleweights will want to step in the ring with Kirkland and risk getting blown out. Kirkland may find himself in the same situation that Paul Williams has been in the past three years.

Unless you’re popular to the point where other big named fighters are willing to take the risk to fight you, the fighter ends up having a lot of problems getting big fights. This is how I see it happening with Kirkland until he becomes hugely popular. It’s too bad Pacquiao and Cotto will likely not fight him, because I think those fights would be interesting while they last.