Heartbreak As Carlos Molina DQ'd Against James Kirkland

by Gautham Nagesh

Boxing is a tough sport to follow, but as an occupation it can be downright intolerable. Junior middleweight contender Carlos Molina of Chicago boxes for a living. He trains hard, he fights smart, and he always gives fans their money’s worth. And he keeps getting screwed by the sport that he loves, again and again.

Molina was disqualified in the tenth round after dominating most of his fight against James Kirkland in Houston Saturday night on HBO. Molina’s trainer entered the ring during the count following a knockdown by the resurgent Kirkland, forcing the ref to call an end to the bout.

“I don’t know if it’s my record or what it is, but it seems to happen to me all the time,” Molina said in the ring after the fight.[[MORE]]

To their credit, both Kirkland and his trainer Ann Wolfe were well aware Molina had been winning the fight before the DQ, and both said they wanted the fight to continue. Wolfe told Carlos as much as she stood in the center of the ring and consoled him following the decision. Kirkland might have been setting himself up for a big finish, or he may have escaped with a win on the second-worst night of his career. Sadly, fans will never know the truth.

Until the tenth, Molina’s craftiness and work-rate had confounded Kirkland, who seemed strangely neutered compared to his typical aggression. The Chicagoan has shown his quality in a series of tough fights, but often ends up on the wrong end of questionable decisions. That trend held true to form against last night, as he gave Kirkland all he could handle for nine rounds.

Kirkland perhaps showed too much respect for Molina’s boxing ability, but Carlos earned some of it with heavy right hands to the southpaw’s face and midsection. Molina is slicker than he looks, and throws from unconventional angles, but he also relies on a strategy of clenching after firing a combination. Kirkland was never able to get started until the tenth, when a heavy right hand followed by a push helped him scored the late knockdown.

Molina’s trainer mostly gave him encouragement between rounds, since not much more was needed, given his fighter’s obvious strategic advantage. But the amateurish move of entering the ring during the count is unforgivable. Carlos deserves better, and hopefully he’ll still get a shot at better fights. But there is little to like for most prospective opponents. The prospect of looking bad against an awkward but little-known foe does not exactly scream Pay Per View headliner.

As for Kirkland, I’m inclined not to hold this performance against him, despite his less than impressive showing. Molina makes everyone he fights look bad, and Kirkland showed good determination and conditioning to score the late knockdown. There’s no way of knowing whether he could have followed through on his plan to put Molina down in the late rounds.

A rematch would be great, but I’m not holding my breath. Kirkland’s name comes up in almost any fight at 154-160 lbs., so if a title shot appears, I expect him to leap. He showed enough vulnerability in this fight to make someone like Sergio Martinez salivate. Kirkland would be better off fighting titlists Canelo Alvarez or Cornelius Bundrage, with the latter appearing a realistic fight for the second half of this year.

But one can’t help but feel for Molina, whose entire career has been one long string of similar incidents, which will likely prevent him from getting the shot he richly deserves. Hopefully someone will step up and give him a good fight, but that would be the right thing to do, and this is boxing.