James Kirkland could be — should be? — finished as a professional boxer.
Kirkland, once a feared slugger, went down three times and was stopped by Juan Macias Montiel only 1 minutes, 56 seconds into a scheduled 10-round middleweight fight on the David Morrell-Mike Gavronski card Saturday in Los Angeles.
Montiel (22-4-2, 22 KOs) put the 36-year-old Kirkland (34-3, 32 KOs) down and hurt him with a left hook to the temple about 30 seconds into the fight, which set up target practice for the hard-punching Mexican.
Moments later Kirkland went down again from two left uppercuts and a right hand. Then, after he received one last reprieve, another upper cut and a left-right combination sent him to the canvas a third time and prompted referee Jerry Cantu to end the slaughter.
Kirkland had won two fights against journeymen opponents in his comeback after a four-year hiatus from the sport, which followed his knockout loss to Canelo Alvarez.
Now, after a thorough beating that seemed to reveal his slow reflexes and inability take punches, it’s difficult to imagine the Texan stepping back into the ring.
Meanwhile, Montiel, who has stopped all of his victims, took advantage of a good opportunity: beating a well-known opponent in spectacular fashion on national TV.
We’ll probably be hearing more for the 26-year-old resident of Los Mochis.
In other preliminary fight, welterweight prospect Jesus Ramos (14-0, 13 KOs) put Naim Nelson (14-5, 1 KO) down twice, beat him up and stopped him after four rounds.