Kirkland pulls out of Rosado fight

Junior Middleweight contender James Kirkland has pulled out of his fight to face Gabriel Rosado on November 8th in Atlantic City on HBO. The fight was scheduled to be the Co-main event to Hopkins-Kovalev. Kirkland hasn’t been in ring since December of 2013 when he defeated Glen Tapia with a 6th round TKO in a slugfest. For a couple years now Kirkland has been a HBO fan favorite fighter usually delivering excitement in every outing. However he has had a history of pulling out of fights, and denying big fights when they have been presented to him. 

In 2012 Kirkland pulled out of a Canelo showdown that would have guaranteed him his highest payday ever. With some bad advice, instead of accepting the $1 million dollar payday, Kirkland’s team decided that they wanted $2 million. The fight never happened. In May of 2014, Kirkland was offered to fight Willie Nelson on HBO, a fight that he also turned down. It was also expected that Kirkland would face Saul Canelo Alvarez in December of this year however once again Kirkland’s team didn’t accept the offer. Rosado was a fight that was all but done but at the last minute Kirkland decided he wasn't going to sign the deal saying that he was having problems with is promoter, 50 Cent, and team.