In Saturday night’s  “Golden Boy Promotions” HBO “Boxing After Dark” main event from San Jose, California,  rising star James Kirkland remained unbeaten when Colombia’s Joel Julio was unable to answer the bell for round seven in their Junior Middleweight encounter.   

Kirkland, the NABO Light Middleweight champion, was too strong and applied relentless pressure to totally overwhelm his opponent from the opening bell.  In his usual “search and destroy” aggressive style, the winner’s body attack and unending pressure prevented the Colombian native from mounting any attack of his own.  As round one was coming to an end, a strong left hook by Kirkland opened a cut just outside Julio’s right eye.  The winner maintained his relentless attack on a constantly retreating Julio in the following two rounds, and by the third round Kirkland’s smothering offensive display clearly had a tired Julio in a survival mode.  Only near the end of the third round did the loser mount any offense of his own, connecting with a few combinations that had no affect on Kirkland.   

By the fifth round it was evident that a tired, backtracking Julio could not hurt his opponent, and after taking some more punishment, Julio returned to his corner with his right eye bruised and almost closed.  By his slow walk to his corner, it was evident that Julio was a beaten fighter.  The sixth round followed the same pattern, with Kirkland’s continued pressure and Julio absorbing punishment that had him wobbly as the round ended.   With his right eye almost closed and with no chance of a victory, the fight was stopped as Julio was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round, making Kirkland a “TKO” winner. 

The victory raised Kirkland’s record to 25-0 with 22 KOs, in what was to have been his most difficult opponent and a definite step up in class.  His most impressive prior wins were against two undefeated fighters,  Eromosele Albert and Brian Vera.   The win sets up possible attractive matches against Sergio Martinez, Paul Williams, Vernon Forrest or Alfredo Angulo in a very competitive and exciting division.  

For previously highly regarded Joel Julio, the disappointing performance brings his record to 34-3 with 31 KOs with this second consecutive loss.  In his previous fight, he unsuccessfully challenged “WBO” Junior Middleweight champion Sergiy Dzinziruk in a 12-round loss.

In the opening fight of the “Boxing After Dark”  tripleheader,  former “IBF” featherweight champion Robert Guerrero,  23-1 with 16 KOs, faced undefeated Daud “Chino Latino” Yordan of Indonesia,  23-0 with 17 KOs,  for the vacant “WBO” NABO Super Featherweight title.  An accidental clash of heads in the second round resulted in a severe cut over Guerrero’s eye.  Unable to see due to the blood flow into his eye, the fight was stopped at 1:47 of the round after the ring doctor examined the cut, and it was declared a “No Contest”.

In the second televised fight on the card,  “Vicious” Victor Ortiz successfully defended his “WBO” NABO Light Welterweight title with a second round stoppage of Mike Arnoutis.   After a cautious opening round,  Ortiz delivered a hard left hook that stunned his opponent.  With Arnoutis backed into a corner, Ortiz delivered many unanswered punches that had his opponent defenseless.  The referee had no choice but to stop the action and save Arnoutis from further punishment, thus declaring Ortiz a “TKO” winner.

The win raised Ortiz’ record to 24-1-1 with 19 KOs.  Loser Arnoutis, stopped for the first time in his career,  now has a record of 21-3 with 10 KOs.  He was trained by former Welterweight champion of the world James “Buddy” McGirt.