Signing off from Houston
That’s all for now, but tonight’s outcome sets the stage for a vastly fascinating series of fights ahead. Should Miguel Cotto get through Daniel Geale on 6 June – not a sure thing – a Canelo-Cotto showdown essentially becomes the biggest fight that can be made today. Certainly a meeting between the winner and Gennady Golovkin is a mouth-watering prospect as well. Big things ahead. And for once, they don’t involve Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.
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Ringside reaction
A sampling of the reaction from boxing insiders from a knockout that reminded us just how dangerous Canelo can be.
Your leader in the clubhouse for KO of the Year. #canelo
— Steve Carp (@stevecarprj) May 10, 2015
Absolutely amazing! Thanks, Canelo. Thanks, Kirkland. Thanks, ref. I feel good like I knew I would.
— Nigel Collins (@ESPNFNF) May 10, 2015
KO of the year. #CaneloKirkland #boxing
— Mark Kriegel (@MarkKriegel) May 10, 2015
Canelo hit Kirkland so hard he had to come back and check to see if Kirkland's spirit left his body.
— Andreas Hale (@AndreasHale) May 10, 2015
Alverez is genuinely concerned. He hows exactly what he threw and how hard. Damn.
— BAM Boxing Promo.Inc (@BAMBoxingInc) May 10, 2015
My gawd! Canelo just caught a body!
— Danny 'Swift' Garcia (@DannySwift) May 10, 2015
Couldn't ask for a better matchup or performance from Alvarez.
— adam abramowitz (@snboxing) May 10, 2015
Hell of a knockout!!!
— Gabriel Rosado (@KingGabRosado) May 10, 2015
Where have you gone Ann Wolfe?Kirkland turns his lonely eyes to you...when he opens them!
— Lou DiBella (@loudibella) May 10, 2015
#CaneloKirkland those 3RDs were worth $100
— FightNights.com™ (@boxing) May 10, 2015
Round 3 (Alvarez wins by TKO!)
Kirkland with a left to the body, but Canelo comes back with two sharp hooks and some nice comhination punching. A massive right uppercut from Canelo and Kirkland is floored again! Makes it to his feet and convinces the referee he’s OK, but then a destructive right hand from Canelo knocks Kirkland down and out cold. It’s over! Canelo Alvarez wins by knockout!
WATCH the overhand right from @Canelo that closed the show on #CaneloKirkland http://t.co/7yP9i7fbR1
— HBOboxing (@HBOboxing) May 10, 2015
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Round 2
Canelo picks up where he left off in the first, attacking to the head and body. Kirkland needs to start throwing punches or the referee could stop this. He looks out on his feet. Only Kirkland’s superhuman conditioning has kept him in this. Halfway through the round and finally it seems Kirkland has his feet back under him. He’s got Canelo backed up against the ropes now as he throws combinations to the head, but Canelo fires back with a thudding body shot that hurts Kirkland. Might Canelo have punched himself out? An all-out war. Kirkland giving as bad as he’s getting.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Alvarez 9-10 Kirkland (Alvarez 19-18 Kirkland)
Round 1
Kirkland sprints from the corner. Nice right hand from Kirkland early. Making good on his promise to keep this fight in a phone booth, keeping Alvarez covered up against the ropes. But now Alvarez lashes back with a left hook and an uppercut and he’s hurt Kirkland! Seems Kirkland backed off after that first body shot. Kirkland is down! Incredible first round and Kirkland barely made it out.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Alvarez 10-8 Kirkland (Alvarez 10-8 Kirkland)
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Not much longer now
Michael Buffer, who thankfully has his voice back after the Mayweather-Pacquiao scare, delivers his trademark catchphrase with a little extra gusto. The ring is emptying out and we’ll have round-by-round coverage from here on out.
Ringwalk time
Kirkland makes his way to the ring wearing black robe with red trim, a white towel draped over his head. Now it’s Canelo emerging from the tunnel to massive roars from the crowd. Kirkland may be a Texas native but surely there’s little doubt who the house fighter is.
Missing in action
Looming large over tonight’s fight is the specter of Ann Wolfe, Kirkland’s longtime trainer who is absent from his corner tonight. Considered by many (present company included) the greatest female boxer ever, Wolfe moved into training fighters and became renowned for her unorthodox and over-the-top training techniques that drive her pupils to the limit: she routinely makes them fight two opponents at a time, run 15 miles a day the in Texas heat, chasing or running from trucks with heavy bags on them, carrying truck tires and so forth.
Under Wolfe, Kirkland ran out to a record of 24-0 and was in line for a title shot. Then he went to jail on an outstanding gun probation charge and was out of the sport for two years. After returning to boxing with a win, Kirkland split with Wolfe. In the one previous fight where they were apart, Kirkland was stunningly knocked out in the first round by light-punching Nobuhiro Ishida. It remains his only career loss.
They reunited shortly after and Kirkland has won five straight including had the signature win of his career – a knockout of Alfredo Angulo that saw him knocked down 30 seconds into the fight but come back to win – one of the best fights I’ve ever seen.
For reasons that have mostly gone unexplained – HBO’s 24/7 couldn’t shed much light on it – Kirkland decided against training with Wolfe for the biggest fight of his career, opting instead for the unheralded tandem of Bay Bay McClinton and Rick Morones.
Weight woes
The co-feature bout slated ahead of tonight’s main event between junior welterweight prospect Frankie Gomez (18-0, 13 KOs) and former two-division champion Humberto Soto (65-8-2, 35 KOs) has been canceled. The fight had been contracted for 140 pounds, but Gomez had appealed to have the limit raised to 145 this week citing an illness. Soto allowed it, but Gomez still came in at 147.5 pounds. Not good.
Let’s hear your predictions
With roughly 45 minutes until the fighters are scheduled to make their ring entrances, let’s hear your predictions via email (bryan.graham@theguardian.com) or Twitter (@BryanAGraham). Most of the sportsbooks have priced Canelo as a 2-11 favorite, with Kirkland listed as a 5-1 underdog.
Lights, camera, action
Welcome to Houston’s Minute Maid Park for tonight’s fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and James Kirkland, a super welterweight scrap that promises to deliver pulse-pounding action where last weekend’s high-profile – and high-priced – defensive clinic fell short.
A crowd of 40,000 is expected at the home of baseball’s Houston Astros to watch Alvarez, a former unified champion at 154lbs regarded by many as the successor to Floyd Mayweather’s pay-per-view throne, return to action for the first time in 10 months – the longest layoff of his career. He’ll be in against one of boxing’s most enigmatic and fascinating fighters in Kirkland, a fearless brawler whose fights almost always involve two-way action and knockdowns. He hasn’t been in a fight that went the distance since June 2007.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime why not check out HBO’s 24/7 tracking the run-up to tonight’s super welterweight showdown.
