By Dan Ambrose: A fleshy looking James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) says he’s already started training camp for his fight against Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) on May 2nd at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Kirkland, 30, looks like he’s going to need to make a significant part of his training camp a fat farm to drop weight, because he looks like he’s put on quite a bit of weight since he last fought over a year ago in December of 2013 against Glen Tapia.
Depending on how much weight Kirkland has to drop to get down to the 155 pound catch-weight for the fight, we could see him look good against Canelo. It’s the perfect type of opponent for Kirkland. He’s always done well against the Brian Vera type guys, and Canelo is definitely out of the same mold as Vera in terms of his fighting style.
“They just know what I bring to the table and Saul Alvarez brings to the table,” Kirkland said. “It’ just one of those particular fights that fans have waiting on. It’s a big opportunity for me, and a big opportunity for him to just give it our all on this particular date. When you see me in the ring at that particular time, expect to see it all from boxing and moving to aggression to pressure. Pressure wins fights. So I come to do what it takes. Camp is already hard as hell. It’s getting gruesome and ruggish. It’s starting to hurt. But at the end of the day, I’m doing what it takes to beat Saul Alvarez.”
When asked how to describe what his fight against Canelo will be, Kirkland said “Action packed. The reason why is because he’s going to come to bring his show, and my fans, friends and family know what I come to do. So let’s make it happen.”
If Kirkland comes into shape for this fight, he could spoil Golden Boy Promotions idea of making Canelo look good against him. Kirkland obviously knows that he was picked out in order to add a scalp with a name on it to the 24-year-old red-headed Canelo’s resume the easy way.
They know Kirkland has been out of the ring for over a year, and they probably were well aware that he’d put on weight with his time out of the ring as well. Instead of matching Canelo against Gennady Golovkin, the Charlo brothers or putting him back in with Erislandy Lara, they dug up a rusty and out of shape Kirkland for Canelo to fight.
This could backfire on Canelo and Golden Boy if Kirkland can get into great shape and show the same form he had years ago when he was destroying guys like Vera, Joel Julio and Eromosele Albert. It is kind of troubling that Golden Boy chose to dig up a guy who has been out of the ring for such a long time in Kirkland.
When Oscar De La Hoya, the president of Golden Boy, told Lara that he needed to get in the back of a long line if he wanted to face Canelo again, it was thought though that the line that De La Hoya was talking about had relevant fighters like Golovkin and he Charlo brothers at the front of the line. But for De La Hoya to dig up Kirkland, that is disappointing, and it makes you wonder whether De La Hoya will be carefully matching Canelo from now on to try and avoid him losing again. He was beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr and arguably beaten by Lara and Austin Trout.
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