Kirkland’s manager talks Canelo or Cotto fight in November or December

By Boxing News - 07/25/2014 - Comments

kirkland334By Dan Ambrose: Michael Miller, the co-manager for popular but seldom active James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KO’s), is reportedly up for the idea of Kirkland facing Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KO’s) or WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto this year.

Either of those guys are fights that he wants to set up for the 30-year-old Kirkland. Canelo is the one that they really one. No doubt they smell blood in the water after seeing Canelo struggle to a controversial win over Erislandy Lara, lose to Floyd Mayweather Jr, and beat Austin Trout by a far from impressive decision.

Canelo would be a nice victory for Kirkland if Miller can arrange the fight, which is far from a sure thing. Kirkland obviously won’t want to fight for free, and that’s the part where it could prove difficult to make the fight. Canelo will be the A-side, and unless Kirkland is agreeable to taking what’s offered, the fight won’t happen.

Miller told Dan Rafael of ESPN “Eric [Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions] and I have kicked around the idea of a Canelo fight. We talked about if Canelo was offered would we need a tune-up fight? Kirkland doesn’t need a tune up. I said talk to 50 Cent and see if we can put it together. If not, we’ll listen to other offers. We’re open to suggestions. If Cotto makes sense, of course, we’d listen.But the fight Kirkland has wanted is Canelo. He has wanted it forever.”

It’s pretty much the last halfway decent fight left at junior middleweight for Canelo to take, aside from giving Lara a rematch to clear up the controversy surrounding his win over him. Kirkland looks good sometimes when he’s matched against guys that don’t have a lot of speed or mobility.

Kirkland can be blitzed out as we saw in his 1st round knockout loss to Nobuhiro Ishida in 2011. Even Alfredo Angulo had Kirkland on the canvas in the 1st round of their fight in 2011. If Angulo hadn’t run out of gas in that round, he probably would have finished Kirkland off in the 2nd or 3rd. But Angulo gassed out and stayed gassed out until he was stopped in the 6th.

Canelo-Kirkland isn’t a fight that’s being pushed for by the fans. Kirkland has been out of the loop for so long that no one is pushing for this fight among fans. They’d rather see Canelo fight Gennady Golovkin or Miguel Cotto. The Canelo-Cotto fight will likely happen next year, but the Canelo-Golovkin fight will likely take place never. Golovkin is too good and he already sparred with Canelo, and the rumors are he worked Canelo over pretty good during the sparring session.



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