Canelo Álvarez Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán (; born 18 July 1990), commonly known as Canelo or Saúl Álvarez, is a Mexican professional boxer. He has held multiple quadruple champion#Boxing, world championships in four weight classes, from light middlewe ...

vs. James Kirkland was a professional boxing match contested on May 9, 2015.

Background

, who was coming off a unanimous decision victory over

Erislandy Lara Erislandy Lara Santoya (born 11 April 1983) is a Cuban-American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the World Boxing Association (WBA) middleweight title since 2023 ( Regular version from ...

in July 2014, had been looking for a new opponent to fight. His team had been negotiating with several potential opponents, including

Miguel Cotto Miguel Ángel Cotto Vázquez (born October 29, 1980) is a Puerto Rican former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2017. He is a multiple-time world champion, and the first Puerto Rican boxer to win quadruple champion, world titles in fo ...

, but the talks had fallen through. Ultimately, the decision was made to face James Kirkland, who had been considered a dangerous opponent due to his punching power. In March, at the official press conference, the fight was announced to take place at

Minute Maid Park Daikin Park (originally Enron Field and formerly Astros Field and Minute Maid Park) is a retractable roof stadium in Houston, Texas, United States. It opened in 2000 and is the home ballpark of the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball (MLB). ...

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, Texas on 9 May, live on HBO, a week after the 2 May fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao. It marked the first fight of Álvarez's lucrative HBO contract.

The fight

Kirkland came out aggressively, but Álvarez wobbled him and scored a knockdown via straight right hand in round one. In the third round, a counter right uppercut sent Kirkland to the canvas. Álvarez ended the fight with a jab to the body quickly followed by the right hand, creating the KO. Álvarez landed 87 of 150 punches thrown (58%) and Kirkland landed 42 of 197 (21%).

Aftermath

After the bout, Kirkland said, "I did not know I was knocked out." He was then taken to hospital to undergo a

CT scan A computed tomography scan (CT scan), formerly called computed axial tomography scan (CAT scan), is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers or ...

. The fight drew an average of 2.146 million viewers on HBO and peaked at 2.296 million, the highest viewership for HBO in 2015.

Undercard

Confirmed bouts:

Broadcasting

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Álvarez, Kirkland 2015 in boxing 2015 in sports in Texas May 2015 sports events in the United States Boxing matches in Houston Kirkland Boxing on HBO