James Kirkland: Will he, can he?

So he has been out of prison a while now. Goodness knows how he coped in there amoung murderers and rapists. I know he is tough but in the prison world being a light middle contender does not make you the daddy as we say.

But anyway he is out. James Kirkland won 25 (KO 22) + lost 0 (KO 0) + drawn 0 = 25

A bonified world challenger or on the cusp of before his outside the ring antics led him to the clink. Still young enough to get busy in the boxing ranks and was becoming a $ draw too.

so how far can he go, i see he is due for a warm up in April then another short after according to boxing rec. So hopefully we will see if he can pick up where he left off.

So how far can he go? Will he be able to challenge the lieks of Martinez who floats around his weight range. Cotto, Angulo, Williams can all fight at LM too. If he moves up there is Pavlik if he stays and AA if he drops down not to mention Pirog and Sturm.

So there are fights. But Kirkland. What can he offer?

Thoughts ?

yes

Nope.

I know he is tough but in the prison world being a light middle contender does not make you the daddy as we say.
--------
He was probably on the nonces wing.

I had high hopes for Kirkland before he was sent down to do porridge, and even upon his release I'll admit that I had him as a dark horse for a top ten pound for pound spot in two or three years time. He'll always be a tremendous puncher, which in itself means that in divisions which are solid but hardly spectacular or awash with great technicians currently (Light-Middleweight and Middleweight) he'll always have a chance of upsetting the major players, even allowing for the intevitable ring rust.

The frustrating this is, that just prior to his prison time he was actually starting to add a little bit of craft, patience and discipline to his natural aggression, and it's those finer points which will take a lot of time to rebuild. I honestly think that the disaster the other week was purely a mix of being out of the swing of things and being caught cold, but it certainly has put him at a 'make or break' crossroads now.

My gut feeling now is that he'll probably fade away, but in the back of my mind I'll remember the impressive performances of 2008 (I thought we were seeing the future of the 154 lb weight class when he beat Vera) and I wouldn't be all that surprised if he proved me and one or two others wrong by nicking a belt of some sort in the future.

I've no doubt he has the talent to pick up a belt in the future, if he can accept this defeat, regroup and move on, he can become a contender again, he fought the wrong kind of fight last time out but Ishida looked well up for it, he hunted him down straight from the off where he should have had a look in the first round and put a game plan in place after that, he's not going to be able to blast everyone out of there, hopefully he's back in the ring sooner rather than later.

He may need Ann thingummy in his corner again. He worked well with her before he did porridge - he should consider going back to her now.

Problem was that he and his team utterly underestimated their opponent. Kirkland's training since prison has focused solely on cutting weight.

The guy was incarcerated under such stringent conditions that he wasn't allowed to do any training where he threw a punch, even shadow boxing.

First thing you gotta do after that is get a fighter to feel what it's like to punch and be punched.

I find it staggering that he has done next to no sparring since he came out, it's all cardio to make the 154lbs limit. Absurd.