By Dan Ambrose: Junior middleweight James Kirkland (28-1, 25 KO’s) looked a little sharper and more lean in beating Dennis Sharpe (17-8-3, 4 KO’s) by a 1st round TKO on Friday night in a two knockdown fight at the at the Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, Texas. However, Kirkland showed all the same defensive liabilities as he showed in his 1st round knockout loss to Nobuhiro Ishida last April.

The only difference here is that Sharpe didn’t have the hand speed to unload on Kirkland the same way that Ishida. But when Sharpe did throw, he landed cleanly with shots and had no problems connecting to the head of Kirkland. Besides how easy it was to hit Kirkland, I didn’t like how he would seem to freeze a split second after he would get hit. It was that same freezing that Kirkland did in his loss to Ishida that allowed the Japanese fighter to unload with fast shots to take him out.

As for the Sharpe fight, Kirkland stayed in close with Sharpe and finally succeeded at knocking him down with a left to the body. After the action resumed, Kirkland once again went back to the body with another left to put Sharpe down for the final time. Referee Robert Chapa then stopped the fight at 2:18 of the round.

Sharpe was the perfect opponent for Kirkland to beat, but I don’t see this fight as meaning anything. The Kirkland I saw tonight would easily be beaten by Ishida or a fighter like Ishida that can throw fast combinations in short period of time. You put Ishida in there with Kirkland again and I see Ishida blowing Kirkland out with a flurry of shots thrown in rapid succession. Kirkland looks too slow and he freezes.