(Photo Credit:Ed Mulholland/Golden Boy/Golden Boy via Getty Images) By Dan Ambrose: In a predictable outcome, former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) knocked out the ring rusty James Kirkland (32-2, 28 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout on Saturday night at the Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.
Canelo knocked Kirkland down three times in the fight. The fight was halted at 2:19 of the 3rd after Canelo dropped Kirkland with a right hand to the head. Canelo knocked Kirkland down once in the 1st and twice in the 3rd round.
Kirkland used very little defense and was constantly getting hurt in the fight.
Canelo appeared to be a little gassed in the 2nd round, as he stayed against the ropes for the entire round appearing to rest from all the shots he threw in the 1st round.
After the fight when asked if he would be interested in fighting WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Canelo said “Yes, why not? He’s a great champion. In the future, yes.”
The way that Canelo said that he’d be interested in fighting Golovkin didn’t make it sound as if Canelo is interested in facing Golovkin this year. Canelo wants to fight WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto later this year in September. Canelo wants that fight despite the fact that Cotto is seen as the inferior fighter to Golovkin. Canelo still wants the fight with Cotto more than Golovkin, and that’s not surprising because Golovkin likely would have destroyed Canelo tonight.
This is the second time that Kirkland has fought without his old trainer Ann Wolfe and in both cases, he’s been knocked out. Is it a coincidence that Kirkland can’t win without Wolfe or is it reality?
Kirkland was rumored to have taken off 50 pounds of weight during training camp. He also hadn’t fought in almost two years since 2013. Some boxing fans wonder why Canelo picked another ring rusty fighter to face instead of an active fighter in the junior middleweight division like the Charlo brothers or Demetrius Andrade. Both of those fighters are considered to be well above Kirkland, and both are active fighters. The question is why did Canelo fight a guy that had been out of the ring for almost 2 years and had to take off around 50 pounds during training camp?
Other boxing results on the card:
Joshua Clottey UD 10 Jorge Silva
Rodrigo Guerrero RTD 7 Arturo Badillo
Armando Pina TKO 2 Zachariah Kelley
Keandre Gibson UD 8 Jorge Romero
Alfonso Lopez TKO 2 Lester Gonzalez
Joseph Rodriguez MD 6 Luis Guevara
Crescencio Ramos TKO 1 Cody Walker
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