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Nothing comes easy for James Kirkland
Great article on front page of http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing
By Kieran Mulvaney
Special to ESPN.com
In the world of professional pugilism, there are boxers and there are fighters.
James Kirkland is a fighter.
He has always been a fighter, from his earliest days, from the time when, fatherless and dirt poor, he roamed the streets of East Austin.
"When I was growing up, we didn't always have the best of things, so I would always get in trouble," Kirkland said. "We didn't have it, we had to take it, we sure couldn't earn it. I was always fighting … my mom put all my brothers and me into boxing."
She steered him to local trainer Donald "Pops" Billingsley, who took him off the streets and into the gym, paying him $5 to spar other kids. Kirkland was just 6, but he took to Billingsley, and the sport, immediately.
"I just enjoyed being able to put my hands on somebody and not get in trouble about it," Kirkland said.
Billingsley became, in effect, the father Kirkland had never had. And it was in his gym that the young man met someone else who would have a profound effect on his life.
Ann Wolfe was homeless with two young children when she walked up to Billingsley in 1995 and said she wanted to learn to box. Billingsley was reluctant but relented; Wolfe blossomed into a powerful and feared fighter, a four-weight world champion whose 2004 one-punch knockout of Vonda Ward is a YouTube staple.
No longer fighting, Wolfe has segued into training. As Kirkland's chief second, strategist and motivator, she has guided him to a professional record of 24-0 with 21 knockouts, a reputation as one of the most exciting prospects in the game and an HBO date on Saturday night (10 ET/PT) with fellow rising junior middleweight star Joel Julio.
Notwithstanding Wolfe's reputation as a fighter, Kirkland concedes that his being trained by a woman has raised some eyebrows.
"Believe it or not, man, there's a lot of people who go, 'How's a female going to be able to train a man to win a world title, or how she's gonna be able to teach him to do anything?'" Kirkland asked. "All I can say is, [it's easy] if a woman says for you to run five miles, and you look around and she's right behind you and she's running five miles, or she says to hit the bag for 10 rounds or get on the treadmill and she's right alongside doing the same thing with me. She's in there doing the same thing that I do."
Junior middleweight contender Ishe Smith, who sparred with Kirkland for a week in February, testifies that Wolfe and Kirkland have a training regime unlike that of most other fighters.
"They do all types of things, training I've never seen before, like dragging tires, all this military-type training," Smith said. "He trains real hard, and she trains him really hard."
Kirkland acknowledges the intensity and revels in it.
"Every time you get up and you're coming to the gym, you know you're coming to battle," he said. "Not as far as a fight in the ring but a fight as far as endurance, for your heart and your soul, how much effort you're going to put into it, because every part of your mind, body and soul, she's going to make you put it into a workout."
The way they train is reflected in the way Kirkland fights, according to Smith.
"If he learns to settle down, if he works on his craft a little bit, he's going to be very hard to beat for a lot of people," said the alum from Season 1 of "The Contender." "But he's very, very intense. If you hit him, he wants to hit you back."
There is perhaps no better example of Kirkland's "hit and be hit" style than his war with Allen Conyers in November 2007. Kirkland tore out of his corner and laid into his opponent with both fists -- only to walk into a pair of right hands that dropped him onto the seat of his pants.
As if enraged at Conyers' audacity, Kirkland bounced back up and resumed his assault, flooring Conyers twice and punishing him so badly that the contest was waved off before the first round was over.
His ferocious approach in the ring belies a polite and gentle demeanor outside the ropes, a contrast to the angry young boy Billingsley rescued from a life of street fighting and crime.
As Billingsley expressed it in HBO's "Real Lives" mini-documentary about Kirkland, "I've seen him change from a kind of thug into something better."
"Yeah, I'm a people person," Kirkland said.
That all changes when the bell sounds and the fight is on, when Kirkland becomes, as Wolfe has put it, "like a shark in blood-infested water."
It's a ferocity and intensity Kirkland believes will allow him to overwhelm whomever he fights, no matter their skill level or his own perceived weaknesses.
"People always say I don't have enough defense or I get hit with too many right hands or they say this or say that," he said. "But every time, eventually, in the later rounds or whenever it may be, they all get caught. They all get hurt."
He expects nothing different Saturday.
"When I see Julio fight, I think he's a pretty good cat, he does his thing real well," Kirkland said. "But y'all are going to see March 7 what goes down, and I don't see it going past six rounds. He's a good fighter, and I hope he's coming prepared. Because I know I'm coming prepared."
That much is certain. Kirkland has been prepared since he was 6 years old.
He was a fighter then, and he's a fighter still.
By Kieran Mulvaney
Special to ESPN.com
In the world of professional pugilism, there are boxers and there are fighters.
James Kirkland is a fighter.
He has always been a fighter, from his earliest days, from the time when, fatherless and dirt poor, he roamed the streets of East Austin.
"When I was growing up, we didn't always have the best of things, so I would always get in trouble," Kirkland said. "We didn't have it, we had to take it, we sure couldn't earn it. I was always fighting … my mom put all my brothers and me into boxing."
She steered him to local trainer Donald "Pops" Billingsley, who took him off the streets and into the gym, paying him $5 to spar other kids. Kirkland was just 6, but he took to Billingsley, and the sport, immediately.
"I just enjoyed being able to put my hands on somebody and not get in trouble about it," Kirkland said.
Billingsley became, in effect, the father Kirkland had never had. And it was in his gym that the young man met someone else who would have a profound effect on his life.
Ann Wolfe was homeless with two young children when she walked up to Billingsley in 1995 and said she wanted to learn to box. Billingsley was reluctant but relented; Wolfe blossomed into a powerful and feared fighter, a four-weight world champion whose 2004 one-punch knockout of Vonda Ward is a YouTube staple.
No longer fighting, Wolfe has segued into training. As Kirkland's chief second, strategist and motivator, she has guided him to a professional record of 24-0 with 21 knockouts, a reputation as one of the most exciting prospects in the game and an HBO date on Saturday night (10 ET/PT) with fellow rising junior middleweight star Joel Julio.
Notwithstanding Wolfe's reputation as a fighter, Kirkland concedes that his being trained by a woman has raised some eyebrows.
"Believe it or not, man, there's a lot of people who go, 'How's a female going to be able to train a man to win a world title, or how she's gonna be able to teach him to do anything?'" Kirkland asked. "All I can say is, [it's easy] if a woman says for you to run five miles, and you look around and she's right behind you and she's running five miles, or she says to hit the bag for 10 rounds or get on the treadmill and she's right alongside doing the same thing with me. She's in there doing the same thing that I do."
Junior middleweight contender Ishe Smith, who sparred with Kirkland for a week in February, testifies that Wolfe and Kirkland have a training regime unlike that of most other fighters.
"They do all types of things, training I've never seen before, like dragging tires, all this military-type training," Smith said. "He trains real hard, and she trains him really hard."
Kirkland acknowledges the intensity and revels in it.
"Every time you get up and you're coming to the gym, you know you're coming to battle," he said. "Not as far as a fight in the ring but a fight as far as endurance, for your heart and your soul, how much effort you're going to put into it, because every part of your mind, body and soul, she's going to make you put it into a workout."
The way they train is reflected in the way Kirkland fights, according to Smith.
"If he learns to settle down, if he works on his craft a little bit, he's going to be very hard to beat for a lot of people," said the alum from Season 1 of "The Contender." "But he's very, very intense. If you hit him, he wants to hit you back."
There is perhaps no better example of Kirkland's "hit and be hit" style than his war with Allen Conyers in November 2007. Kirkland tore out of his corner and laid into his opponent with both fists -- only to walk into a pair of right hands that dropped him onto the seat of his pants.
As if enraged at Conyers' audacity, Kirkland bounced back up and resumed his assault, flooring Conyers twice and punishing him so badly that the contest was waved off before the first round was over.
His ferocious approach in the ring belies a polite and gentle demeanor outside the ropes, a contrast to the angry young boy Billingsley rescued from a life of street fighting and crime.
As Billingsley expressed it in HBO's "Real Lives" mini-documentary about Kirkland, "I've seen him change from a kind of thug into something better."
"Yeah, I'm a people person," Kirkland said.
That all changes when the bell sounds and the fight is on, when Kirkland becomes, as Wolfe has put it, "like a shark in blood-infested water."
It's a ferocity and intensity Kirkland believes will allow him to overwhelm whomever he fights, no matter their skill level or his own perceived weaknesses.
"People always say I don't have enough defense or I get hit with too many right hands or they say this or say that," he said. "But every time, eventually, in the later rounds or whenever it may be, they all get caught. They all get hurt."
He expects nothing different Saturday.
"When I see Julio fight, I think he's a pretty good cat, he does his thing real well," Kirkland said. "But y'all are going to see March 7 what goes down, and I don't see it going past six rounds. He's a good fighter, and I hope he's coming prepared. Because I know I'm coming prepared."
That much is certain. Kirkland has been prepared since he was 6 years old.
He was a fighter then, and he's a fighter still.
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