By Jason Kim: James Kirkland’s arthroscopic surgery today on his right shoulder was a success according to ESPN. Kirkland had surgery on Monday to repair two small tears in his right shoulder from his questionable 10 round disqualification win over Carlos Molina on March 24th at the Reliant Arena in Houston, Texas. The surgery was performed in San Antonio, Texas.

Kirkland (31-1, 27 KO’s) will be in a sling for three weeks while his shoulder heals. After that he’ll began a long rehabilitation period to where he should be ready to start training in three months. Kirkland suffered the injury at some point in the 10 rounds of action against Molina.

Kirkland is expected back in the ring in September, although he won’t be facing Paul Williams, the fighter that his promoters Golden Boy Promotions had been looking to line Kirkland up against. However. Kirkland also won’t likely be back in the ring against Molina either and that’s disappointing because the fight cries out for a rematch.

Kirkland may have gotten the win due to the referee giving him the victory by disqualifying Molina for one of his corner people stepping into the ring after the round had ended, but there’s no real victory there. Kirkland was dominated in the fight and the knockdown in the 10th was more of a situation where Molina lost his balance and stumbled at the same time he was lightly hit by Kirkland.

If it was up to Kirkland, he’d likely fight Molina again to try and prove he’s the better fighter. However, Kirkland’s promoters will likely steer him in a different direction against another opponent, preferably someone that stands in front of him and doesn’t try and fight on the inside or to hold the way that Molina was doing. Molina used the punch grab technique to a high level. He completely bottled up Kirkland’s offense and was ahead of the fight by two rounds at the time of the disqualification.