By Dan Ambrose: Previously unbeaten James Kirkland (27-1, 24 KO’s) doesn’t have a clue why his fight with former WBA junior middleweight interim champion Nobuhiro Ishida (22-6, 8 KO’s) was stopped in the 1st round on Saturday night on the undercard of the Marcos Maidana vs. Erik Morales fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kirkland, looking kind of fleshy compared to his toned physique two years ago before going to prison, was knocked down three separate times before referee Joe Cortez stopped the brutal mismatch at 1:52 of the 1st round moments after the 27-year-old Kirkland had been knocked down for the third time in the round. Kirkland failed to understand why Cortez halted the fight and felt it should have been allowed to continue.
This is what Kirkland had to say after the fight according to fightnews.com: “I don’t know why they stopped the fight. There is not a three knockdown rule in Vegas. I’m really upset right now. That was a messed up call. I was telling him [Cortez] I wanted to keep fighting. He [speaking about Ishida] wasn’t anything. He had no power.”
Well, it looks like Ishida had enough power to hurt Kirkland and keep knocking him down every time he got back up. Cortez looked like he stopped it because he didn’t want to see Kirkland hurt. Ishida was all over Kirkland after dropping him with a short left hook for the first knockdown of the round. Kirkland was bum rushing Ishida at the time and never saw the quick left hand that he got knocked down by. It didn’t really matter that Ishida wasn’t a huge puncher; He just kept throwing a lot of fast punches and they were connecting without Kirkland seeing them. It was like Kirkland was fighting in slow motion against a fighter that was at a different speed than him. Kirkland just didn’t seem prepared to fight someone with Ishida’s hand speed or someone that throws as many punches as Ishida.
Kirkland has been used to fighting slower guys that fight at a more leisurely pace. Ishida came out fast and was all over Kirkland from the very start of the fight. I don’t think Kirkland was prepared for that at all. It’s like Ishida and his team made it a point to jump on Kirkland hard from the very beginning and look to throw a lot of quick punches. Whatever they planned, it sure did work. Cortez did the right thing by stopping it. Kirkland just didn’t have the speed to deal with Ishida and would have likely been knocked down again and again if the fight had been allowed to continue.
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