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(James Kirkland)
By Gabriel Montoya
The last time we saw southpaw junior middleweight contender James Kirkland, 25-0 (22), in the ring, it was March 7, 2009 and he was beating the hell out of Joel Julio and cementing his place as both Golden Boy Promotions’ and boxing’s star of the future. With his all-black attire, torn white towel robe, and pure chaos fighting style, the Austin, TX native reminded many of a young Mike Tyson. They had the same glare, the same walk to the ring, the same take-no-prisoners, give-no-quarter fighting pace and of course, they both knocked people out in ruthless fashion. Julio lasted six rounds of pure hell before he quit on his stool. The win, which was a surprise to many, put Kirkland in position to vie for a title by summer of ’09. All he had to do was beat journeyman Michael Walker on the May ‘09 undercard of Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton. It was a showcase/tune-up affair that would have introduced Kirkland to the boxing world on the grandest of stages. The cries of “Who will be the next pay-per-view super star?” seemed answered once Kirkland proved his mettle against Julio in dominant, impressive fashion. Stardom was James Kirkland’s for the taking.
But it was not to be. Not just yet.
On April 19, 2009, Kirkland, a convicted felon for a 2003 armed robbery conviction that kept him in prison for a little over two years, was arrested for buying a gun at an Austin gun show. It’s a federal offense for a felon to purchase, much less possess, a firearm. The crime carries a possible ten-year sentence. All was seemingly lost, considering the strict laws in Texas and Kirkland’s past.
Kirkland, 26, pled guilty in July. With moving testimony on his behalf by co-trainer Ann Wolfe, promoter Oscar De La Hoya and co-manager Mike Miller, and considering the six months he had already served, he was sentenced to 18 months in Bastrop Federal Prison in Bastrop, TX. The sentence was a relief and it started Kirkland on a path of personal enlightenment and some serious revelations about the world around him.
I first saw James Kirkland on June 3, 2006 on the undercard of what should have been Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo III. He was the opening bout of the card and he tore across the ring like a combustible mix of Marvelous Marvin Hagler (his favorite fighter) and Mike Tyson. It was his third fight back after returning from prison and he tore through Ray Cuningham in one round like he was an appetizer and Kirkland hadn’t eaten in years. The pace he set was one of a man on fire, absolutely torrid with a relentless fury that spoke to his hunger and desire to not just beat the man in front of him but destroy him.
Every fight after that was the same with Kirkland rushing across the ring in a near-sprint looking to take the head off of his opponent. Approaching from all angles that left him open to counters, Kirkland seemed impervious to pain or punches though it was expected this breakneck approach would be his undoing. Still, he remained under the radar until November 30, 2007 when he took out Allen Conyers in a one-round slugfest on Showtime’s “ShoBox: The New Generation” that saw Kirkland get knocked down for the very first time, only to rise and drop Conyers twice en route to the TKO1 victory.
Soon after, Kirkland soon split with his second promoter, Gary Shaw and signed with Golden Boy who quickly put him in the driver’s seat in a young but burgeoning junior middleweight division.
With the world nearly in the palm of his hand, Kirkland’s crime put all that on hold until about 9 AM, Texas time, September 30, 2010.
“It doesn’t feel real yet,” Kirkland told me just hours after his release Thursday morning, as he drove from Miller’s office in San Antonio, TX to a halfway house in Austin where he will spend, at most, three months of a three-year probation.
There has been much speculation as to why Kirkland did what he did. He had not spoken publicly about the crime until today as he stayed in jail from the time of his arrest until this morning in hopes of taking time off of what his team felt would be a lengthy sentence. Some said Kirkland was merely a thug from East Austin; a street kid who started sparring at age six for $5 a round. Others claimed the life of an on-the-cusp star had gotten to him and that he had spoiled on the vine before he even had the chance to ripen.
For the first time outside of a police or courtroom, James Kirkland gets to tell his side of the story.
“The situation is like this,” he began. “Basically, I had got robbed previous to me buying the gun, so I thought it in my best interest to protect my kids. So I thought about just going to the gun show, buy a gun, even though I already knew I was a felon. I was just like, you know, ‘I’ll get this for protection.’ And even though I tried to get it from a private owner, it all backtracked on me. I signed my name, gave him my ID and just got myself a world of trouble.
“I’d say [the robbery] was a week and a half before the incident,” Kirkland continued. “The reason I didn’t report it was because the person had a mask or something like that on. My knowledge was how can you do anything about it? How can any justice get done by it if I say, ‘Oh, I seen the robber and he just in some car. He had a mask on.’ They going to be like, ‘What color is the car? You don’t know the color of the car.’ And you don’t know the color of the car because you’re so scared, you know? There’s just a logic that goes to it that you know no justice is going to get done behind it.”
The robbery happened just as Kirkland was arriving home. He didn’t even have time to get out of the car when a gunman relieved him of everything he had on him and fled quickly.
In a sense, the perception that success had changed Kirkland is true. But not in the way you think. While James stayed the same, tending to his three children and training in much talked-about sessions with co-trainer/conditioning coach Ann Wolfe and Pops Billingsley, the way he was perceived changed.
“Where I stay in East Austin, they look at you not just as a fan or a friend,” Kirkland explained. “They also look at you as a target because you have access to money. Now you are like a money target. ‘Oh, he’s got the money, man. These boxers making this type of money.’ So they start looking at you as a target instead of looking at you as a friend. You know everybody doesn’t have these opportunities or set their mind frame or goals to try and achieve anything. So they think, ‘The only way I know how to make it is to put that pistol to somebody and rob.’ You know, that’s just the real world where people want to do those types of things. And hey, that’s why I made the decision that after the incident happened, I went ahead and to go buy a firearm and protect myself and my family.”
It was reported by some that Kirkland went to a gun show near Austin, TX and purchased a firearm, left the show, then returned to buy a second firearm. Kirkland explained why that perception came out and why it is wrong.
“That’s nonsense,” he said of the story. “The reason I went back was because a lot of people were telling me, ‘Hey, no. You’re a felon. You’re a felon.’ I said, ‘I know but the dude did a background check on me and he said I was good.’ So my whole mind frame was to go back up there and say, ‘I want to go back to the dude and make sure and ask him, ‘Did you run my name in and I was good?”
James ill-hatched plan was to tell the man he bought the .40-caliber Glock handgun from, that he had gone to someone else to purchase a gun and they had denied him due to a pending domestic violence case which actually was not true. Kirkland tested the man and instead of the man ‘fessing up, the plan backfired horribly.
“So I went back up there and I told him, ‘You know I got a case, this family violence case,” explained Kirkland. “I lied to the dude and said, ‘I had a family violence case pending. I went to another person and tried to buy another firearm,’ which I was lying to try and see if he really ran my name. I said, ‘I went to another dude trying to buy a gun and he said, ‘No, you got a family violence case pending.’ And I said [to the gun dealer], ‘So did you really run my name in?’ I just really told him a story to see what he was going to say as far as running my name in. He said, ‘I wouldn’t have sold you no gun if you a felon.’ I said ‘That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking did you run my name in?’ And he got all uppity about the situation. I said, ‘Look here now; I did not want the gun. I will give the gun back to you.’ So the guy got a little uppity about it and so I said, ‘I’m going to let you calm down. Meanwhile, when you calm down, I’ll come back and holla at you and he was like, ‘Alright.’”
But it wasn’t “alright” as soon as a couple of undercover agents from the ATF stepped in. Soon “uppity” turned to covering his own behind as the gun dealer threw Kirkland under the bus to cover his lack of a background check on a felon.
By Gabriel Montoya
The last time we saw southpaw junior middleweight contender James Kirkland, 25-0 (22), in the ring, it was March 7, 2009 and he was beating the hell out of Joel Julio and cementing his place as both Golden Boy Promotions’ and boxing’s star of the future. With his all-black attire, torn white towel robe, and pure chaos fighting style, the Austin, TX native reminded many of a young Mike Tyson. They had the same glare, the same walk to the ring, the same take-no-prisoners, give-no-quarter fighting pace and of course, they both knocked people out in ruthless fashion. Julio lasted six rounds of pure hell before he quit on his stool. The win, which was a surprise to many, put Kirkland in position to vie for a title by summer of ’09. All he had to do was beat journeyman Michael Walker on the May ‘09 undercard of Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton. It was a showcase/tune-up affair that would have introduced Kirkland to the boxing world on the grandest of stages. The cries of “Who will be the next pay-per-view super star?” seemed answered once Kirkland proved his mettle against Julio in dominant, impressive fashion. Stardom was James Kirkland’s for the taking.
But it was not to be. Not just yet.
On April 19, 2009, Kirkland, a convicted felon for a 2003 armed robbery conviction that kept him in prison for a little over two years, was arrested for buying a gun at an Austin gun show. It’s a federal offense for a felon to purchase, much less possess, a firearm. The crime carries a possible ten-year sentence. All was seemingly lost, considering the strict laws in Texas and Kirkland’s past.
Kirkland, 26, pled guilty in July. With moving testimony on his behalf by co-trainer Ann Wolfe, promoter Oscar De La Hoya and co-manager Mike Miller, and considering the six months he had already served, he was sentenced to 18 months in Bastrop Federal Prison in Bastrop, TX. The sentence was a relief and it started Kirkland on a path of personal enlightenment and some serious revelations about the world around him.
I first saw James Kirkland on June 3, 2006 on the undercard of what should have been Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo III. He was the opening bout of the card and he tore across the ring like a combustible mix of Marvelous Marvin Hagler (his favorite fighter) and Mike Tyson. It was his third fight back after returning from prison and he tore through Ray Cuningham in one round like he was an appetizer and Kirkland hadn’t eaten in years. The pace he set was one of a man on fire, absolutely torrid with a relentless fury that spoke to his hunger and desire to not just beat the man in front of him but destroy him.
Every fight after that was the same with Kirkland rushing across the ring in a near-sprint looking to take the head off of his opponent. Approaching from all angles that left him open to counters, Kirkland seemed impervious to pain or punches though it was expected this breakneck approach would be his undoing. Still, he remained under the radar until November 30, 2007 when he took out Allen Conyers in a one-round slugfest on Showtime’s “ShoBox: The New Generation” that saw Kirkland get knocked down for the very first time, only to rise and drop Conyers twice en route to the TKO1 victory.
Soon after, Kirkland soon split with his second promoter, Gary Shaw and signed with Golden Boy who quickly put him in the driver’s seat in a young but burgeoning junior middleweight division.
With the world nearly in the palm of his hand, Kirkland’s crime put all that on hold until about 9 AM, Texas time, September 30, 2010.
“It doesn’t feel real yet,” Kirkland told me just hours after his release Thursday morning, as he drove from Miller’s office in San Antonio, TX to a halfway house in Austin where he will spend, at most, three months of a three-year probation.
There has been much speculation as to why Kirkland did what he did. He had not spoken publicly about the crime until today as he stayed in jail from the time of his arrest until this morning in hopes of taking time off of what his team felt would be a lengthy sentence. Some said Kirkland was merely a thug from East Austin; a street kid who started sparring at age six for $5 a round. Others claimed the life of an on-the-cusp star had gotten to him and that he had spoiled on the vine before he even had the chance to ripen.
For the first time outside of a police or courtroom, James Kirkland gets to tell his side of the story.
“The situation is like this,” he began. “Basically, I had got robbed previous to me buying the gun, so I thought it in my best interest to protect my kids. So I thought about just going to the gun show, buy a gun, even though I already knew I was a felon. I was just like, you know, ‘I’ll get this for protection.’ And even though I tried to get it from a private owner, it all backtracked on me. I signed my name, gave him my ID and just got myself a world of trouble.
“I’d say [the robbery] was a week and a half before the incident,” Kirkland continued. “The reason I didn’t report it was because the person had a mask or something like that on. My knowledge was how can you do anything about it? How can any justice get done by it if I say, ‘Oh, I seen the robber and he just in some car. He had a mask on.’ They going to be like, ‘What color is the car? You don’t know the color of the car.’ And you don’t know the color of the car because you’re so scared, you know? There’s just a logic that goes to it that you know no justice is going to get done behind it.”
The robbery happened just as Kirkland was arriving home. He didn’t even have time to get out of the car when a gunman relieved him of everything he had on him and fled quickly.
In a sense, the perception that success had changed Kirkland is true. But not in the way you think. While James stayed the same, tending to his three children and training in much talked-about sessions with co-trainer/conditioning coach Ann Wolfe and Pops Billingsley, the way he was perceived changed.
“Where I stay in East Austin, they look at you not just as a fan or a friend,” Kirkland explained. “They also look at you as a target because you have access to money. Now you are like a money target. ‘Oh, he’s got the money, man. These boxers making this type of money.’ So they start looking at you as a target instead of looking at you as a friend. You know everybody doesn’t have these opportunities or set their mind frame or goals to try and achieve anything. So they think, ‘The only way I know how to make it is to put that pistol to somebody and rob.’ You know, that’s just the real world where people want to do those types of things. And hey, that’s why I made the decision that after the incident happened, I went ahead and to go buy a firearm and protect myself and my family.”
It was reported by some that Kirkland went to a gun show near Austin, TX and purchased a firearm, left the show, then returned to buy a second firearm. Kirkland explained why that perception came out and why it is wrong.
“That’s nonsense,” he said of the story. “The reason I went back was because a lot of people were telling me, ‘Hey, no. You’re a felon. You’re a felon.’ I said, ‘I know but the dude did a background check on me and he said I was good.’ So my whole mind frame was to go back up there and say, ‘I want to go back to the dude and make sure and ask him, ‘Did you run my name in and I was good?”
James ill-hatched plan was to tell the man he bought the .40-caliber Glock handgun from, that he had gone to someone else to purchase a gun and they had denied him due to a pending domestic violence case which actually was not true. Kirkland tested the man and instead of the man ‘fessing up, the plan backfired horribly.
“So I went back up there and I told him, ‘You know I got a case, this family violence case,” explained Kirkland. “I lied to the dude and said, ‘I had a family violence case pending. I went to another person and tried to buy another firearm,’ which I was lying to try and see if he really ran my name. I said, ‘I went to another dude trying to buy a gun and he said, ‘No, you got a family violence case pending.’ And I said [to the gun dealer], ‘So did you really run my name in?’ I just really told him a story to see what he was going to say as far as running my name in. He said, ‘I wouldn’t have sold you no gun if you a felon.’ I said ‘That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking did you run my name in?’ And he got all uppity about the situation. I said, ‘Look here now; I did not want the gun. I will give the gun back to you.’ So the guy got a little uppity about it and so I said, ‘I’m going to let you calm down. Meanwhile, when you calm down, I’ll come back and holla at you and he was like, ‘Alright.’”
But it wasn’t “alright” as soon as a couple of undercover agents from the ATF stepped in. Soon “uppity” turned to covering his own behind as the gun dealer threw Kirkland under the bus to cover his lack of a background check on a felon.
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