Boxing: James Kirkland vs. Joel Julio

To my knowledge, this is my first blog post on boxing. I’ve been an avid boxing fan for a number of years, even as the sport has suffered from a lack of true superstars.

As usual, I recorded the Saturday night fight on HBO. There were 3 fights on the card, with the top of the card pitting two light middleweights against each other, James Kirkland and Joel Julio.

Max Kellerman, one of the HBO commentators that I’m not usually wild about, said, “If you know someone who used to be a boxing fan, hit pause and go get them.”

I had no idea what to expect, as I had never seen either fighter in action before.

Joel Julio threw 30 power punches in the first round, landing 10 of them. Throwing 30 power punches in a round is a pretty high number by boxing standards, though not a record. But, all in all, a great output by Joel Julio. Which paled in comparison to the 76 power punches James Kirkland threw in the first round.

For comparison, Floyd Mayweather threw 241 power punches against Oscar de la Hoya….in 12 rounds. James Kirkland passed that number early in round 5. Now, he didn’t land at as good a rate as Floyd, but boy did this make for an interesting boxing match. These guys swung for the fences for 6 rounds straight before a cut over Julio’s eye stopped the fight, which he was definitely losing.

Still a long way to go for boxing to return to it’s heyday from the 80s and 90s, but what a great fight.