JAMES KIRKLAND STEPS UP

When James Kirkland steps into the ring to face Joel Julio on HBO's Boxing After Dark Saturday night, he'll engage in one of the sweet science's most venerable rites of passage - the step-up fight.

March 5, 2009 - by Dave Larzelere

A charismatic and ferocious southpaw with a relentless attacking style, Kirkland has seen his star steadily rise over the last few years, and now he finds himself poised at a dizzying precipice, headlining his first HBO card and in doing so making a major step up in the level of his competition.

For a fighter on the brink of breakout stardom, this can be as terrifying a proposition as it is exhilarating. There are only so many elite spots available at the top of this game, and in this era of internet news cycles and rapidly dwindling attention spans, you're often deemed only as good as your last fight in the minds of fans and the media. It's become a near-requirement that a young fighter remain undefeated in his quest for fame and fortune, at the very least until his name is etched in the public consciousness enough to withstand a setback, like stars Kelly Pavlik and Miguel Cotto weathered last year in high-stakes pay-per-view fights.

According to boxing's merciless algebra, however, at this vulnerable point in James Kirkland's career a single high-profile loss could be devastating to his future plans. Over and over again, a hot young prospect on the rise loses a step-up bout and immediately finds the cognoscenti gathering like vultures over his defeated carcass. "The kid was overrated," they say. "We knew it all along." Next thing he knows, the fighter's stock has fallen faster than GM's, and the money-fights and TV dates dry up accordingly. In this sport as in no other, a measly "1" in your loss column can equal severely diminishing returns on a long-term investment of blood and sweat.

Kirkland need only look across the ring for a reminder of how high the stakes are. His opponent on Saturday night, Joel "The Love Child" Julio of Colombia, was once boxing's most promising young hotshot and named ESPN's Prospect of the Year in 2005. As fans, writers and promoters alike fell in love with Julio's thunderous knockout power, he started to seem like a can't-miss superstar in the making. But in June of 2006 the rapidly rising phenom met his match in the form of slick-boxing Carlos Quintana, who completely outclassed Julio en route to a 12-round unanimous decision upset.

It was only one loss (Julio has since lost again), and it came at the hands of an excellent fighter, a future world champion. But for Julio, it also came at the worst possible time, on a very big stage and in his agreed-upon step up to world-class competition.

Such is the fate that James Kirkland will be looking to avoid when he trades leather with Julio in San Jose this Saturday night. When I spoke to Kirkland on Tuesday, I asked him how he copes with the pressure he faces at this crucial moment in his career, and his explanation was that he experiences it primarily as motivation.

"It puts a lot on a person, definitely," he said. "You got the headliner, you know - it's James Kirkland versus Julio! This is your big moment. And look, I'm thinking about my kids and how I'm going to be able to provide for them. I'm thinking about what I want to do in the future. So as far as the training and conditioning went, I felt very motivated to take myself to a different level for this fight."

Acknowledging the mounting pressure, however, Kirkland still downplayed the idea that Julio was a major step-up in competition for him. "Don't get me wrong," he said, "cause I never look past anybody I fight. But to tell you the truth, I just don't see this as being that big in terms of my opponent, because Julio has two losses on his record now and they both came to southpaws. And he's never faced up against a southpaw like me."

HBO Boxing analyst Max Kellerman disagrees, saying that this is indeed a huge step-up for Kirkland, and one that has a lot riding on it for his immediate future.

"This is definitely James Kirkland's first major league fight," Kellerman told me. "Before this it was like triple-A and now this is a major league fight he's having on Saturday. And if he wins this one, and then one more major league fight, then he'll be looking at the postseason, the really big fights."

But Kellerman also made the case that because Kirkland is such a crowd-pleasingly aggressive fighter, his career probably would not be subjected to the same, ruthless, "one loss and no soup for you" algorithm as are many other fighters with less compelling styles.

"I actually think Kirkland is two losses away from getting bounced back to the pack," he said. "When you think about it, the only fighter in recent years who attacks with the same immediacy and urgency that Kirkland does is Michael Katsidis. And it took two losses for Katsidis to get bounced backwards, Casamayor and then Juan Diaz. Guys like Kirkland and Katsidis - people like to watch them not only because they win, but because it's such constant, naked aggression when they fight. And that makes them a little different than anyone else."

Kirkland agrees with that assessment for sure, that he's different than anyone else, but he has no intention on taking a loss to Joel Julio to prove Kellerman's point. When it comes to stepping up in competition, Kirkland is cautious but confident, and has a very simple formula for success that he plans to ride as far as it will take him.

"Look," he said, "this is how I do it. The bigger and better my opponents are, the more I pick up my game. That's all there is to it."