Crime in Sports - #73 - Violence Becomes Him - The Ridiculousness of James Kirkland

Episode Date: June 20, 2017

This week, we take a ride down lunatic lane with a man who can't help but commit some kind of crime , at every turn. This is a man who was discovered in the worst of conditions, rose to the point of success, before making sure to blow every single opportunity he was given. You'll be impressed with him, and maybe even grow to like him... but that won't last. An idiot is an idiot, and idiots are our business!!Fight your way out of the shelter, commit a Christmas robbery, then never learn your lesson with James "The Mandingo Warrior" Kirkland!!Check us out, every Tuesday. We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanHead to truecrimecomedyteam.com for all things Crime In Sports & Small Town Murder! Pre-order your 1st run, original t-shirts today, and get them in 30 days, or less!!Donate at...patreon.com/crimeinsportsPlease support our sponsors...Go to stamps.com & click on the microphone, and use the code CIS for your special offer today!!Contact us on...twitter.com/crimeinsportsinstagram.com/crimeinsportsEmail: [e-mail]/Crimeinsports#crime #sports #murder #conspiracy #police #prison #jail #cops #true #truecrime #trial #drugs #mentalillness #assault #death #kill #boxing #fighting #lightmiddleweight #tyson #robbery #domesticviolence #armedrobbery #felon #wonderwoman #champion #stallone #overthetop   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. The Queen of the Courtroom is back. How did I know that? i have crystal ball in my head new cases leave her a long so uh this is not a so this is a period classic judy it's streaming you can say anything it's an all-new season judy justice only on freebie Hello and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay! My name is James Petrigallo.

I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Westman. Whoa, we're psyched. Fuck yeah, we are. I'm excited for this. As usual, we're always pumped for this. This is my favorite thing in the world to do. I'm telling you.

I hope you guys are excited as we are because we get Jack to tell these stories. So we really hope you guys listen to it. This is fucking crazy. They're all crazy. This is ridiculous. No different. We have a crazy-ass story this week. Just a wild one of a guy who just can't ever learn.

Didn't need to. Never fucking learn. It's never anything. Before we get into that, I want to thank everyone for their iTunes reviews this week because you guys did an amazing job for us this week on those. Thank you guys so much. They're really the most appreciated thing in the world are those iTunes reviews. They're our life's blood. They're every podcast's life's blood.

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How about that? On your body. And then you can send me a picture and I will retweet it. Yes, we'll both retweet it and the page. We'll all retweet it. And we will brag about

you being amazing and helping us out a ridiculous amount. So yeah, if you want to do that, you can do that now. Pre-order your shirts. These are the originals.

This is the Crime and Sports first generation. And we're going to do like kind of we'll get rid of a shirt once we sell it out. I'm not doing it again. Yeah, we'll have new shirts. So it's going to be like that. So this will be – No, if we come to your town and do a live show and you show up in the original one, we'll know you're one of the first people.

We'll know you're the hardcore. Exactly. That's kind of exactly what we're doing. It's like a kind of a club thing. Like, hey, you take a picture, show us the original. You're like, ooh, you're an original. I like it. And if somehow I can continue doing comedy for 20 fucking years and somebody shows up

in the first generation Crime and Sports shirt, I can go back into the green room and jerk off thinking about how amazing you are. I think that's what you do. Isn't that what you do? I think, yeah. I think that's protocol. In 20 years, I'll probably take a nap. Yeah. You'll take a nap now if you get years, I'll probably take a nap. Yeah.

You'll take a nap now if you get a chance. I'd love a nap. That sounds great. Because I haven't slept because I've been dealing with this guy. All right. Yeah, let's get into it. Tell me. Let's get into James Kirkland.

Okay. James Derek Kirkland. All right. He's not a junior, thankfully, for him. And he's not the owner of the product sold at fucking Costco. No, he's definitely not. He's not one of those heirs? He's not the Kirkland man.

He has one of the best names we've ever had as far as nicknames go. Uh-oh. That's why he's a boxer. I love boxing episodes because, A, they're the craziest because they've had the most blows to the head. So that usually means they're going to be insane. Yeah, you scramble that egg and it creates some weird shit. And we'll see. This guy has more fights than I've heard of anyone having in a long time.

Between all of this, they also have to have a braggy nickname. You have to. So we get great nicknames out of this. What's his name? James Kirkland? James Kirkland. James Kirkland. I can't even guess.

Well, you would guess this. There's nothing in that name. No, it's not about the name. His nickname is the Mandingo Warrior. Oh, my God. So racist. Yes. He's a black guy.

I feel racist saying that. He's definitely black. He's definitely black. Jesus I feel racist saying that. He's definitely black. He's definitely black. Jesus. I can barely deal with the N-word, let alone Mandingo. He calls himself Mandingo Warrior, and everyone just calls him Mandingo like it's his first name. I can't do it. Like his trainer later is like, I was talking to Mandingo a little while ago.

I'm like, what the hell? It's so strange. It's so strange. What a terrible word. It's odd. It's odd. So it was the date of birth here, March 19th, 1984. Yeah.

So he's a younger guy in terms of what we usually do here. In boxing, he makes most of his time as a light middleweight at 154, which is he's 5'9", 154. And these are the fun guys to watch fight. These are the fun guys to watch fight. This is my favorite weight class of all of boxing. I'm a boxing fan. Well, this is great because heavyweights, you have the knockout factor, which makes it exciting.

At any point, this could end because one shot, you could knock that guy out. And if you have guys that are like 110 pounds, their fights are amazing to watch because they're just beating the shit out of each other. But nobody ever goes down because it's like a pillow fight. Yeah, no one is strong enough to knock each other down. 1.54, they have the speed of the small guys and yet enough pop to knock the shit out of each other and watch them go down. So I got to watch some really fun fights. It's so weird, too, because, like, I'm not one for, like, if you say, like, hey, here's a check this Worldstar video out.

I don't like watching. I'm uncomfortable watching people in the streets fight. I don't like watching. I'm uncomfortable watching people in the streets fight. I'm uncomfortable with people who – I'm uncomfortable if someone didn't volunteer to get their ass kicked. Get their ass kicked. I don't like that. It makes me feel weird and I want to turn it off. There's no monetary gain in that either.

You know what I mean? Boxing is so – it's like this guy, he trained. He signed a contract. They advertised him. He did interviews talking about – talking shit about the guy, inciting him to punch him in the face harder. There was pictures taken of them. There was pictures of them taken in poses of I'm going to kick the shit out of you.

That didn't happen in the street. Very voluntary. And that punch that happens in the street when the person gets knocked out, when their arms go out. Yeah, not great. That shit makes you so uncomfortable. I just don't like watching any of that. The boxing knockouts are different. Yeah.

And this guy's fights are so exciting. Yeah. It's no let up. Really? He gets in the ring and he swings at you until you go down. Really? And you can hit him. That's not going to stop him from coming in at you, though.

I mean, he'll walk right into jabs. He takes them. He'll take two to deliver one. Really? But not one. He'll throw eight punches and maybe hit you with one and take a couple on the top. But he's fine with that. He has no problem with that.

He's all aggression. He's all aggression, rage. He's early Mike Tyson on coke. He's a terrifying man. That would be the best way to describe his in-ring style. He's a weapon. He's a weapon. He's dangerous.

He's a southpaw, too. Really? He's left-handed, and he's not just a southpaw fighter. He's actually left-handed. Really? So that is also, that makes you a hard guy to fight. Yeah. If you've ever seen a Rocky movie, no one wanted to fight Rocky because he was a lefty, and it

messes up your rhythm, it messes everything up. And the movie Southpaw. And Southpaw. I think Rocky might be a touch more popular. And a touch better. A touch more influential than Jake Gyllenhaal. A little bit. Just a drop. A little more influential than Jake Gyllenhaal. A little bit. Just a drop.

A little more believable, too, that he took a bunch of punches the way he talks rather than Jake Gyllenhaal coming out of there and giving just beautifully flawless interviews about the boxing movie. For Stallone, it must have been nice that he didn't have to put that on at all. Just like, no, no, no, just talk normal. He's like, really? All right. I have been. All right, all right. I'll talk normal. I don like, really? All right. I have been. All right, all right. I'll talk normal.

I don't want to sound too smart. It's like a boxer. They're like, no, no, really sly. Don't worry. You're not going to sound too smart, really. Don't worry. Hilarious. He grows up excessively poor, James Kirkland.

This is the poorest we've had. Really? We've had guys, Willie Mays Akins, Tommy Morrison. We had a sharecropper. We had a sharecropper. We had a sharecropper who shit outside. We had an outdoor shitting sharecropper. We have had a trailer park prostitute mother. We've had dirt floor with no bathroom.

We've had sugar cane guy that didn't even go to school. We've had all of this shit. This guy's the poorest of them all, which is hard to imagine. He has the worst. Where he's found is amazing. We'll get into this. He's the second of three brothers. He's a middle child.

He grew up no father, obviously, extremely poor. Well, in his upbringing. It wasn't a two-parent household really trying hard and he had the worst upbringing ever. That's not possible. You know what upbringing ever. That's not possible. You know what I mean? It's not possible. I just like the way that came out. It's just the way it is. Shit upbringing and terrible and the worst ever. Assume there's not a two-parent household.

No dad or at least no mom. One parent. Not two. Relied on food stamps to survive. Had no food. He grew up in East Austin, Texas. And apparently East Austin is terrible. I don't know how it is now, but it's been awful the whole time. Yeah, we do. We've been there.

That's true. We didn't cruise East Austin, though, really. We just stayed around where South by Southwest was. We got in, did our podcast, got the fuck out. Yeah, literally, really did. Literally, yeah, yeah. We drove all night. We did.

Got in, got out. Got the fuck out. So we went from West Austin to downtown and then back the fuck east. We didn't care about east. We didn't bother. And it's probably good we didn't. Yeah. Based on what I'm hearing here.

Okay. Now we have an in their own words. Let's do an early in their own words here on childhood poverty and his upbringing and everything else. In their own words, quote, we grew up among people that didn't have much. We always had to go next door and borrow some of this or get that. People had food stamps. That was the kind of lifestyle we had.

There were lots of drug dealers, and I was always fighting. Oh, boy. So that's, you know, Jesus Christ. That sounds horrible. He is found at six years old. He meets a gentleman named Donald Pops Billingsley. Sounds like our first silver-haired, middle-aged white man. He is a silver-haired, middle-aged black man.

Oh, okay. His hair is bright white, too. Really? And I'm not saying that because he's silver in terms of his actions. His hair is physically bright white. I love a black guy with white hair. That's my favorite. He's an old black guy.

Pops, everybody calls him Pops Billingsley. Pops is a local boxing instructor. He has fought. He's trained other fighters. He's been doing this for years. 35 years of boxing, basically. And it's mostly youth. So he looks for kids that are fucked up that he can help, basically.

He's a nice guy. He's one of these guys, just like last week, what we had with Javaris Crittenton, the PJ, who tried to help. He's the PJ of this story. It's the same type of thing. Wasn't it JP? No, it was PJ. Was it PJ? Penis javelin. Penis javelin. It's PJ. I was going javel this story. It's the same type of thing. Wasn't it JP? No, it was PJ. Was it PJ? Penis javelin. Penis javelin. It's PJ.

I was going javelin penis. Javelin penis. I like penis javelin better. So he also, Billingsley's other famous fighter that he has is a four weight division, eight-time women's champion. Four divisions. Four different weight divisions,

eight-time women's champion named Ann Wolf. weight divisions eight-time champion named ann wolf wow ann wolf is a bad bad bad bitch and i say that in the most respectful way not bitch like fuck that bitch i mean that's a bad bitch right there she's a badass she's a bad bitch i wouldn't tell she was a bad fuck no i'd be like you're a badass lady yeah you are me keep it going i'll walk away she's awesome this lady she has the coolest arc in this whole story her story is amazing her life and her upbringing was a mess but we'll talk about this uh for one second pops takes uh takes uh james in when he finds him james is six years old and is found by pops in a homeless shelter by himself hanging out at the homeless shelter

holy shit so this is the worst we've had. That's why I said this is the worst. Like a prostitute in a trailer park, at least they had a trailer. At least he had a home. Share cropping, at least they had a shack to share crop out of. This kid is in a homeless shelter at six. Wow. That tells you right there. That's

a different level of poor. We're not even talking about has a home poor. We're talking about a six-year-old kid on the street poor. So Pops finds him. Not just food stamps, but soup kitchen. Soup kitchen, yeah. You know what I mean? That's terrible.

It's insane. It's awful. So Pops takes James under his wing. He takes him into the gym. He shows him how to box. He does, you know, he takes him, he treats him like a son, like he treats all the kids. And gives him something to do to stay off the fucking street. That's the other thing.

The kid's six years old in a homeless shelter. He's going to be out running amok any time it's going to happen. At least you teach him to box and teach him to defend himself. That way, if he does walk away from this, at least the kid can fight his way out. Well, plus, boxing is one of those things that is all-encompassing. So it's like if you get the kid into boxing, he's going to be there 10 hours a day for the next 15 years. So that'll keep him out of trouble, that sort of thing. And that's what he liked to do, too.

He tried to keep these kids out of trouble. He only had one requirement, and this was with everyone that trained in his gym, Pops, that they accompany him to church on Sunday. That's nice. So they all have to go to church with him on Sunday, which for these kids, maybe not the worst thing in the world. They need some sort of something just to say, hey, look, people dress in nice clothes and go out as a family.

You know what I mean? And then you hear a good message. And if you have any spare money, you throw it in a bin. Obviously, kid, you don't have any. Just come hear a nice message with me. Yeah. And maybe they throw a can or two at these kids, too. I don't know what they do to help them out.

Drop them some green beans. Clothes bin or something like that. Now, Ann Wolfe's story, her early life, horrible, horrible. Mother died when she was six. Her mother died when she was eight. She was unable to read or write at that point. She had no skills. She dropped out. She was molested

as a preteen. What? Her father was killed. Her father was killed in the street. Her brother was killed in an attempted robbery. Her other brother is serving a life sentence in prison for murder. Just terrible. I mean-

So hold on. His trainers- This is his trainer, Ann Wolf. Both her parents are dead. All of her siblings are in jail or dead. Yes. And she somehow gets out of that and becomes a fucking champion? Well, let's find out how that happened.

Around 1990, she was just a mess. She was out. She was selling drugs and things like that. She is arrested on a drug charge, serves 18 months in jail back then. So she does have some crime. She had two young daughters at this point, too. She's got two young daughters. She's trying to, you know, make something out of this, make ends meet.

She spent a year working night construction jobs during the day and then being homeless at night. Wow. She said her and her daughters lived under a boat in an abandoned parking lot. Oh, my God. How horrible. Under a boat. Under the boat. I got nothing.

I got nothing. The thing about her life before that, she never had a chance, this poor woman. I mean, and she doesn't give a shit. She makes it. Her whole family's gone. She's got two kids. She goes and works construction all day, then goes home to live under a boat. Under a boat.

How much worse can it get? With her two kids. Unbelievable. Telling them, yeah, we'll get out of here soon. Yeah. Because, you know, you want to reassure your kids. It's horrible. Yeah.

One day, she sees a female boxing match on TV, and she found out that they get paid for it. She's like, I'm pissed. I can do that. Yeah, she's a tough lady. She's like, I'll whoop somebody's ass right now if you give me some money for it. And this is a woman, too. I don't care if she's got skills or not.

She could beat your ass based on, I'm going to eat dinner tonight, and you're not. I'm going to feed my fucking kids and get a motel for the night so I don't have to sleep under the boat. This is boat punching right here. Survival instinct at that point. I'm going to feed my fucking kids and get a motel for the night so I don't have to sleep under the boat. This is boat punching right here. Survival instinct at that point. I'm telling you, man. So she makes her way to the gym in Austin, and she finds Pops Billingsley, who takes her in and trains her a little bit.

And she's a brawler ass kicker type of fighter. She's not one of these who's, you know, make sure your balance is on the thing. She was getting there and punched the shit out of somebody until they fall. And in female boxing, now it's different because a lot of them are more aggressive. But female boxing back then, if you were aggressive like that, there wasn't a lot of female boxers that were that aggressive. There was no Layla Ali at that point. No. Back then there was Christy Martin in the mid-'90s.

She's from West Virginia or something. I don't know. She goes by the coal miner's daughter. Oh, okay. That's what that was about. She looked like somebody who you'd see at the flea market in a small town somewhere. Did she fight with braids? I don't think she fought with braids, but she threw some – she's a little white girl,

and she threw some haymakers and would knock the shit out of these girls in the early 90s. I think she fought on the Tyson Holyfield undercard when Tyson bit his ear off. I remember it now. I'm pretty sure about that. I feel like – I don't know why I recollect bit his ear off. I remember it now. I'm pretty sure about that. I feel like I don't know why I recollect braids, though. I don't know. She might have had it. Who the fuck knows?

I just pictured her dark. I thought she had like an 80s perm, like that 80s woman perm type thing going on, but I'm not sure. Wolf ends up, Ann Wolf ends up being 24 and 1 in her boxing career. My God. Eight world titles and four different weight classes, like we said. So she's a person. She comes from shit.

And she made something of herself. And wait till you hear what she makes of herself by the end of this fucking story, because it's awesome. I've never been so happy for somebody. 25 fights and eight of them were title fights. That's amazing. That's incredible. And probably more than that are title fights.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eight of them were title fights that she won. What a hero. Whoever her kids are, they're successful fights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eight of them were title fights that she won. What a hero. Whoever her kids are, they're successful today. They've got to be. They have to be with this based on her. To see the drive that she had, yeah, that's incredible. That's feminism, goddammit.

She doesn't let people fail either. No. That, goddammit, is feminism. That's what it is. That's just peopleism. That's just not even, it has nothing to do with anything. That's just fighting for yours. That's just going out and fucking getting yours. That's amazing. She's fighting for her life. She's living under a boat. That's just not even – that's just fighting for yours. That's just going out and fucking getting yours.

That's amazing. She's fighting for her life. She's living under a boat. That's true. Wolf begins – What happens when somebody wants to use their boat though? And then what? They got to move to another boat I think at that point.

They're like, shit. Anything else dry docked around here I can get my hands on? Maybe an old – like an El Camino I can get into. What is this? It's scary I would think. Hopefully it was an abandoned shitty old boat. I mean, at minimum it's abandoned because what happens on Sunday in the summer when the family wants to use it?

I say you just go, let's just let them stay there. It's like a mother and her two kids under it. Fuck it. We're staying home this day. Excuse me. Can you and your raggedy kids please get out of my boat? Me and my family would like to enjoy

an afternoon of leisure. We're going fishing. Would you please leave? Please leave. I need to fill the ice bin with champagne. Every minute is time wasted. It needs to be cold

when we hit the water. Thank you. That's too bad. Take your urchin children and go the fuck away. That's a brutal life. That's a brutal life. It's a brutal life. It really is.

So Anne meets, Anne Wolfe meets James when he's nine years old and begins training him. Okay. In her method of training, which is unlike anyone else on earth. And at this point, he's three years into boxing. He's three years in, just starting to get into it. He's paid $5 a round to spar. Wow. So she says, I'm going to pay you to spar.

That's great. With the other kids. So that's great. So she says, I'm going to pay you to spar. That's great. With the other kids. So that's great. So for him, at nine years old, this is a dream come true. At this point, at nine years old, he's making more than most people get to do comedy. It's true. It's true. Yeah.

There's not a lot of people- That are getting five bucks a set. 97% of people aren't getting five bucks a set, and 50% of them pay five bucks to do their set. That's the fucking truth. Maybe 10. That is awesome. That's the truth truth. Maybe 10. That is awesome. That's the truth.

This kid's killing the comedy game at this point. He's above open micers right now. Right now. At nine. At nine. Unbelievable. Good for you, buddy. Yeah, way to go, Mr. Kirkland.

Get punched in the head. It's better than comedy for you. It's safer. Much safer. God, you'll end up with less drugs in your system, too. At least you can buy a sandwich. That's true. Yeah, $5. Yeah, at least you don't have to pay for the privilege now wolf is known for her extreme training measures and we'll get into some of these later they're like nothing like nobody

else like when they ask later on freddie roach is a famous boxing trainer he's a manny pacquiao trainer he's a he trained everybody matters he matters they talk to freddie roach about her and they're like and he just goes oh man he's like uh you know hey and that's you know if that's that's the style that works and they were like and they so they ask him they're like you know do you would you subscribe to her training methods or is it kind of every trainer you know whatever he goes it's kind of to each his own he goes that's not really my style but you know if someone can can do it then great good for them what's her? Does she force them to sleep under a boat? It's worse. I'd rather sleep under

a boat. Really? She would make them spar two people at the same time. What the fuck? And, oh, by the way, sparring isn't sparring with her. Sparring isn't light punching. Sparring is fighting. It's a real match. And she doesn't call it sparring. She calls it fighting.

She goes, get in here and fight. And it's a fight. Do they have headgear at least? Yeah, yeah. It's because they're not trying to have them break. But they're throwing real punches. They're knocking the shit out of each other unnecessarily. I mean, that's the one thing that you're causing. This is also before we knew anything about CTE and that sort of thing.

Also, headgear doesn't protect your chest and your guts. No. Or your fucking face, for that matter. Your face is sticking out. And you're still getting hit hard in the head and it's snapping your neck, which is what makes your brain go anyway. And there's that little hole right there

that if you get punched there, it boxes your ear. Absolutely. Yeah, so she'd make them fight two people at the same time. That's crazy. She'd have her middleweight spar heavyweights and have them hit them hard.

So it's the same principle as you pick up two bats in the on-deck circle in baseball. Then you drop the one. The one seems light. I think it's the same thing. I've been getting hit by a heavyweight for three months. When I step in the ring with a middleweight, that's not going to be shit. It's not going to hurt. It's going to be easy.

This is like Gladiator, though. That's what she does. She does just insane shit with tires. She has like a broomstick with tires on it, and you have to balance it. It's insane. Unleashes a tiger into the ring. Yeah, exactly.'s unleashed as a tiger you have to box it away she's a jabs only and you have to jab it off it's very complicated jabs only you're like he's got fucking teeth what are you talking about left hand that's it sorry uh also to make them run

for miles and miles and miles in the 105 degree humid Texas heat. With a tiger chasing them. With a tiger chasing them. That hasn't been fed in two weeks. Jabs only. Jabs only. She looks for the weaknesses in her fighters, she says, and then tries to train it out of them. That's her thing.

She says it's not about just doing a little bit extra to get ready. It's about doing all that is necessary to guarantee victory. She says later on that I don't want to be 99% sure that I'm going to win when I train. I train for that 1% to make sure that I have that so I'm positive. And it works for

young James as well. James fights a shitload of amateur fights because he gets into it right away. There's something called the silver gloves, which we'll talk about in a second here, and that is for kids ages 10 to 15. So we know about the golden gloves, which is a national boxing

tournament. They have state tournaments and they have a national tournament for it. It's, you know, whatever. This is silver. That's 16 and up, and this is 10 to 15 for the silver gloves. So he got into this right away. away like she started training at nine he started fighting at 10 yeah right in these tournaments on his birthday you know yeah you know we did overall now we'll talk about his amateur record a little bit but overall

he has an amateur record of take i'm gonna give me a guess of what his amateur record is. If the hint is that there's a lot, I'm getting 85 fights. 134 and 12. Between 10 and 15 years old? That's between 10 and 17. 134 and 12 is his record, so 146 fights. That is in addition to countless, countless hours of sparring

where you're getting punched with live rounds. You're getting hit with live rounds. There's only 2,000 days in those seven years. Think about that, man. And she's fought 146 of those days. In between all the training, which is amazing. This includes winning four Silver Gloves titles. Yeah.

Four. Four. Which is outstanding. You're only allowed to beat her for five years. Five years. And she fought and won four of them. Holy shit. Which is wild. And they're also sponsored by of them, which is wild. They're also

sponsored by Ringside, which is the big boxing you'll see the yellow logo with Ringside on it. It's six years. He got 80% of it. He won. It's amazing, man. It's incredible. Now, back to Ann Wolfe here.

She trained him. Also, mentally, she would train him. She would try to beat them down. It was very much like she had a really – I feel like she's like, look, I've survived everything. I'm going to make you as tough as me. Because her always thing is I want to make everybody as tough as I am. And so I feel like she wants to make these people feel what it's like.

It works though. It really does. And I mean really to get that tough emotionally and physically, you have to go through the emotional part, too. Yeah, you have to. But he went through it. His first six years of his life were fucked. Yeah.

And those three years that he trained for with, what was the guy's name again? Pops. Pops, yeah. Pops. The three years that he sparred with him and trained with him, that probably was still no picnic. No. God, no.

Not at all. And it's an old rundown gym. The equipment's old. I mean, it's one of those things where the gloves aren't as padded as they should be. It's boxing's bad news bears. That's what it is. Headgear's old. Yeah.

It's the wire. Once again, back to the wire. It's when Dennis Wise opens up the boxing gym in the wire, and he's like, I got this ratty-ass equipment, and the kids are all making fun of him for it. They're like, yeah, you got fucked-up-ass gloves, and all that shit. Yeah, that's what this is. Dennis Wise has brought them in here. Every week I get a tweet about how great it is that you watched that.

It's fucking great. It's the best show. Get on your shit and watch it. And I'm an asshole. I need to watch that. The Wire, Always Sunny, Deadwood. Those three you'll get most of my references. I've got Deadwood, and I've got two episodes in. I'm going to finish it. You'll get there. You'll get Always Sunny, Deadwood. Those three you'll get most of my references. I've got Deadwood and I've got two episodes in.

I'm going to finish it. You'll get there. You'll get there. Give me time. You have to build. It's a lot of build. It's a lot of build. And then it comes Fast and Furious.

I can't wait to hear it. All right. So anyway, yeah, she's training him, like I said, mentally, physically, the whole deal in this bratty Dennis Wise Wire gym. Okay. I believe you. I bet that's an amazing reference. They let Naaman go.

They let Naaman go because he wasn't doing anything. I've seen a couple episodes, but obviously I don't get it all. But the episodes I saw were great. Spider's not showing up for his fights. He's out on the corner slinging again, and Dennis has to go get him. Yo, Spider, why aren't you at the gym, man? Sorry. It's a fucking great show.

Anyway, moving on. She made him into a, he's an aggressive animal. When you're that aggressive at 14, you're going to beat the shit out of other kids who might not be as angry and might not come from a homeless shelter and be trained by a woman who lives under a boat. So it's, I don't think anyone else has that.

Yeah, that's the thing, too, that it's like. Yeah, these yeah these people are tough yeah the shit that he's been through and he's trained by somebody that's been through way worse yeah someone even tougher than that uh unbelievable i mean it might they always say too it might not have been technically beautiful like the way he fought he didn't come in like i said he wasn't one of these guys where you're like god his form is beautiful and you know like lennox lewis you watch you're like god he's got beautiful form he's got beautiful form. He's got beautiful footwork. It's amazing.

His jabs are – And he's so big to be able to do all that. This is step in, swing until you knock this guy's fucking head off as hard as you can. They call her training cruel. But it's also what he needed, and that's what he says too. He says there's a lot of trainers that train you up to that point. He said they train you up to that point but they're afraid to push you over that edge. He goes,

Ann is not afraid to push you over that edge and that's what I need when I train. He goes, otherwise it's just not going to work for me which is interesting. He's like every villain in every bad movie where they're like, this is so-and-so.

He's a terrible person and he came from all this awful shit. Or every superhero. Either one. Right. He's either the superhero or the villain. Either one. That's exactly right. That's true. That's amazing. He's a terrible person. He came from all this off-road. Or every superhero. Either one. Right. Yeah. He's either the superhero or the villain. Either one. That's exactly right.

That's true. That's amazing. He might be the superhero. Batman's parents are dead. There you go. She might be Batman. Yeah, she might be. And Wolf is Batman, guys.

This bitch is Batman. Yeah. Actually, she's not Batman. Minus the millions. But she's in another. She does have a connection to a superhero. Really? We'll get into later.

All right. Yeah, this woman has a great life. She's Batman with a- She's the shit. Her bat cave is under a fucking boat. Yeah, it woman has a great life. She's Batman with a... She's the shit. Her Batcave is under a fucking boat. Yeah, it's under a boat. Her Batcave is under the Batboat. Come on, everybody.

Like, a vacant lot is your Batcave? No, under that boat. It's like, what? Okay. Basically, her strategy with him was it didn't matter if his balance was off or his hands were a little too low if he could just pound you for 12 rounds. Yeah. Because they had the stamina where he wasn't going to blow up.

He wasn't going to run out of energy in the fourth round. He was just going to beat you until you went down. So that was the deal. He wasn't going to run out of stamina and energy because he had no food to have any. She said, what did it matter? That's the thing. That's why it had to be over in one round because he has no energy. He hasn't eaten in three days.

That'll make you a tough fighter. That's what it is. She said, what did it matter that his defense was flawed when no one could find a way to get past that firestorm that was his offense? So that makes a lot of sense. 2001, he fights in Reno, Nevada at the Golden Gloves tournament. This is the big one here. It's the Nationals. So this is the big, everyone in the country, the best fighters.

He's at 147 pounds now. He'll fight at 154 later, but he's a kid right now. He's 17 years old. In the first round, he defeats a guy named William Johnson. He goes to the second round where he defeats a guy named Steve Hamm. Quarterfinals, he defeats Shimon Alvarez. Semifinals, he beats Jose Moreno. And finally, in the finals of this gold glove tournament,

he has a really tough fight with a guy named James Patterson. It's a close fight. It was one of those where when they went to the decision, it was a decision, and everybody went, either way. It's one of those, like either way, and they gave it to Patterson. But nobody said Kirkland did anything to lose. Was it unanimous? A little more points.

I do not know that. It says a narrow decision is all I can get out of it. I'll bet it's split. To look up 2001 Golden Gloves results, I'm lucky to get what I got. Patreon.com slash Crime Sports. I love it. So on a personal level, at age 17, he's in a city park and he meets a girl. He meets a girl.

She is not from the hood. She is not from the hood. She's not from the shit. She's not a hood girl. They call it from the other side of the highway, basically. She's the other side of the tracks kind of girl. It's a woman named Vanessa Wells. Yeah. She sounds like she's had a bath.

Yeah. She's nice and clean. She eventually will have two children for James down the road here. She says, quote, when I met him, he didn't have nothing. He wore the same white T-shirt, same clothes every day. I didn't grow up in the hood. I guess he was different from where I lived. I was like, ooh, different.

Yeah. Static. Yeah, I like that. It's just that typical like a 50s movie. The guy pulls up on a motorcycle and leather jackets. Of course, the cigarettes roll up in his sleeve. Look at that. Look at Schneider from One Day jackets. Cigarettes roll up in his sleeve. Look at that. Look at Schneider from One Day at a Time with cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve.

This James Dean character is pretty handsome. Yeah, absolutely. So she sees him. She was kind of interested. She said she found him too prideful at first because he's just a street guy. He's boasty. He's got to be. She turned him down at first.

But later on, I guess somehow through a friend, he arranged a blind date with her. Blind date for her, not for him. He knew what was happening. Yeah, he knew it was coming. And eventually he coaxed her phone number out of her and started trying to get at her. And eventually they became boyfriend-girlfriend and started a little life together. He had a chance to try out for the Olympic trials, but he chose to go pro. Actually, that was at the, not insistence, at the behest of Pops.

Really? Pops told him, look, why don't you go pro? And Pops, he said he thought it would keep him out of trouble. Yeah. If he was fighting for money and he needed to train for a fight and to make money, he thought he would really be more focused. Also, too, let's say on the off chance he wins a medal in in an olympic thing somewhere you got to pay taxes on that and if you're broke you can't pay taxes on medals it's great for his career because if you come out as an olympical

medalist you don't have to fight 10 tomato cans at first you fight start fighting good fighters right away it's that sort of thing but still it's you go pro you make six seven hundred dollars every match money and i think he was just like, that's going to keep you in more constant training, constant fighting, keep going, keep going. So he does turn pro. On August 25, 2001, he has his pro debut at Sunset Station in San Antonio, Texas. Oh, boy. He fights Maurice Chambers, who is a non-linker, of course.

If you don't know our boxing episodes and UFC also, MMA episodes, they'll have their whole record on Wikipedia. And sometimes they'll have links to the guys that you can click on their name. And sometimes they're just black names, nobodies. I, of course, am not going to stand for that. I go to alternate forms of, I found out who the fuck these people are, how good of fighters they were. Got some records. He fights Maurice Chambers, a career 14, 13, and 1 fighter total. That's his career.

It's not great. That's 500 with a tie. I mean, that's not great. Nickname is Moe Bad. I was going to say, oh, you mean Moe. I mean, that's so clever. Moe Bad with two Ds. This ends in a first round TKO at a minute and 49 seconds.

I'm sorry, a third round TKO. One minute, 49 seconds of the third round. This James wins. So he's 1-0. Gets right back gone a couple months later in October 2001. He's fighting at the Frank Irwin Center in Austin, so home. Hometown. He fights Juan Jamie Rodriguez, another non-linker.

Juan Jaime Rodriguez. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it is Juan Jaime. What am I talking about? Yeah, he's a Rodriguez. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it is Juan Jaime. What am I talking about? Of course. Yeah, he's a Rodriguez. This guy is a non-linker, but I had to track him down, and this guy was not easy to track down. He is an 0-2 career.

So I wonder what happened in this fight. This is it. This was a first-round knockout, 46 seconds in. Holy shit. Maybe he'll hang it up now. That's it. I think I'm done. I'll go home. This was his second fight and Kirkland's second fight.

Kirkland's 2-0. He's 0-2. This guy got knocked down in 46 seconds. He says, I think I'm going home now. I think I quit. I'm going back to wherever people pronounce that Jaime. Right. I'm going to go back there.

Going back to El Paso or the other side of the freeway? Either one. Yeah. July 13, 2002, he has his fourth fight at the Aladdin Casino. Ooh, look at that. He's in Vegas now. He's in fourth fight at the Aladdin Casino. Ooh, look at that. He's in Vegas now. He's in Vegas. At the Aladdin.

The Aladdin was called the Aladdin from 66 to 2007, and it's now Planet Hollywood, in case you were wondering, because they don't have the Aladdin anymore. I was wondering about that. Just now in my head, I'm like, that's a nice place. Wait a minute. I don't know where the fuck that is. Where is that now? That makes sense.

No, it's Planet Hollywood now. He fights Jose Luis Rodriguez, this time with an S. The last Rodriguez was with a Z. He wants to kick everyone's ass Jose Luis Rodriguez, this time with an S. Last Rodriguez was with a Z. He wants to kick everyone's ass. Name Rodriguez, no matter what the spelling. He's going to fuck you up. I'm going down the list. Did somebody name Rodriguez hurt him at one point?

I think so. Yeah, he got diddled by a Rodriguez. Another non-linker, of course. Nine and ten career record. And his nickname? Snoopy. Oh, God. That sounds tough.

That's as gangster as it gets now. That's the thing. It's very hood, but in the boxing world, it doesn't sound tough. On the street, if there's somebody named Snoopy after you, you better fucking hide. But in the boxing world, you're like, man, fuck Snoopy. I'm the Mandingo Warrior.

Mandingo Warrior Trump Snoopy. Sorry, he'll whoop Snoopy's ass. He beat Snoopy's ass. Minute 35 into round one of four. These are only four-round fights, Taylor, the low-level fights. TKO it is, so he just knocks the shit out of him. Next two fights, he fights both in D.C. He fights in D.C., Washington, D.C., and in San Antonio.

They're both wins. Third round TKO, fourth round unanimous decision, both against non-linkers. He's doing it, though. He's doing it. He's learning from the professional fight here. January 31st, 2003, he has his first six-round fight. This is scheduled for six rounds instead of four. They've all been four.

This is at Randy's Ballroom in San Antonio. That sounds glamorous, doesn't it? It's a little step down from a little Latin. That's what you dream about as a kid. More accurately, I looked this up. By the way, I think I'm going to let this shit slide. Randy's fucking ballroom. It's actually Randy's bingo and ballroom.

That's what it's called. It's a fucking bingo hall. It's a shit place. Old ladies are playing bingo. You're fighting in front of 90-year-old women? Well, maybe not that night. Clear off the bingo tables tonight, boys. Get that big wheel and put it away because we're letting two guys beat the shit out of each other.

He fights Juan Carlos Arande of mexico another non-linker his career record 8 and 49 holy shit i think it's time to stop i think i could fight him i think i could beat his ass 8 and 49 that's crazy who the fuck did he beat and they aren't saying a word none of them are talking about it the guy who was owing two who did he? Maybe his wife eight times. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Who's he fighting? Not Ann Wolf.

She kicked his ass. This is a TKO in 35 seconds into round three of six. This brings James up to 7-0. Yeah. 7-0, not bad. May 23, 2003 is his ninth fight. This is at the Lucky Star Casino in Conco, Oklahoma, which again, the dream. Not a great place.

People overseas, you know like the Neil Diamond song, they're coming to America? This is what they're dreaming about right here. Like, I'm going to go to Oklahoma to the Lucky Star Casino. They're coming to America. That's what they're dreaming about. To Conco. It's perfect. He fights Sergio Soto of Mexicoxico another non-linker uh his nickname is americano

for some reason he's from mexico his name's sergio soto i don't know what the fuck americano came from maybe he spoke english and they were like americano he looked yeah great that's a good nickname fine whatever slap it on the back of my robe and i'll walk to the ring americano means just american correct yeah you're not he're not funny. He's not American. You're not American. He is from Mexico. This man was born in Mexico and lived there also. I don't know.

Reverse nickname. He has a 16 and 19 career record. The Americano was knocked out in the third round, 54 seconds into the third round, bringing James to 9 and 0. All right. This is when his power starts really showing up. I don't know if the first few fights, if he was tight maybe, if he was just trying to find his footing, the professional ranks.

I don't know if it was a mental thing or what, but he didn't unleash his power. A lot of these are third round stoppages where it seems like it takes him two rounds to let loose. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or to figure out their style. He doesn't figure shit out, ever. He doesn't care.

Maybe he's just getting comfortable in the ring. Yeah, and he even says, like, later on, they ask him, you know, what do you know about this fight or your fight? And he goes, I don't know shit. I know I'm going to beat his ass. I know I'm going to go in there and I'm going to try to punch the shit out of him, you know, and it'll fall down. That's it.

He doesn't care what your style is because he's going to come at you just swinging away. What do you know about this fight? Who is it? Yeah, he doesn't care. They ask him later. So this one, like I said, a quick win here. Three rounds, 9-0. Big power coming

up here. Like August 22, 2003, when he has his 10th fight. This is at the Silver Star Hotel and Casino in Choctaw, Mississippi. Again, this is where all the America's... If you're from another country, this is where all America's sporting events go down.

It sounds like it. NBA Finals, the Super Bowl, the World Series. Mississippi, Oklahoma. It's all in Choctaw, Mississippi, and Conco, Oklahoma. It's all in the Bible Belt. This is really fascinating to me that they have this many fights in the South. We've covered quite a few boxers. I didn't realize that they fought so much in the South.

Yeah, casinos. Casinos are a huge, they need to draw. So they'll take anything. They'll take a washed up comedian. They will. They really will. Are you driven to LA? Oh, man.

All those shits and like, what is that? Oh, Rob Schneider's coming. Great. Can't wait for that. Oh, boy. Oh, wow. Wonderful. This is going to be great.

They're running through the Bible Belt casino-wise. All these casinos in the middle of nowhere, they all do this. Actually, my girlfriend, Sarah, who does our social media, she used to do social media for an ad agency, a different one that she works for now. And she had a couple casinos she had to do. And they were in Oklahoma. One was in California. And that's all it was. It was like, oh, Sir Mix-a-Lot's in town.

Oh, boy. I'm not even kidding. I remember her having to promote Sir Mix-a-Lot for like two weeks and like retweet pictures of like Sir Mix-a-Lot. That's hilarious and fat asses. You know, Snapchat shit that he puts up. So anyway, he fights Magnificent Martinus Clay. Okay.

He fights here. He hasn't picked Mandigo yet? That's not even his name yet? No, no, no. That's James' name. Yeah, yeah. From the's James' name from the beginning. The guy he fights. Has James picked that nickname already? Oh yeah, from the beginning. He's the Mandingo warrior.

And Ann Wolfe, when she refers to him, she's like, Mandingo? So weird. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything

I can fix that new cases. She wanted to fight me leave her a Lo, okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother.

That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all new season. It's streaming. You can say anything. Judy Justice. Only on Freebie.

Taylor Swift is soaring high. Her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show, Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business,

but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Now back to the show. So here he's fighting Magnificent Martinus Clay, a non-linker, of course. His career record, a sparkling 13, 27, and 4.

So, wow. Not a real... That's depressing. I'd call him a journeyman, to be generous. This is a first-round knockout, 54 seconds in. Wow. So he just goes in and just overwhelms this poor guy. So much for Magnificent. Not very Magnificent. Not today.

It's 10-0 for James Kirkland. It's his record. Now, this is – things are going well for him. It's August 2003. Think about how well things are going right now. He started out as a homeless shelter. In a homeless shelter. Taken in. Now he's a professional boxer. He's undefeated.

He's got people behind him. He's got a trainer who's like a real trainer behind him. She's a pit bull off the leash, man. All of these things are going so fucking well for him. He's 10-0. You think things are going to keep going well? He's got to get married. No. He does worse than get married. What does he do? Worse. And we say that You think things are going to keep going well? He's got to get married. No. He does worse than get married.

What does he do? Worse. And we say that because whenever things are going terribly for someone, they usually get married and make it worse and end up having a bad relationship in these stories every time. No. In September of 2003, we're in Austin, Texas, and a city patrolman has to chase James through a housing complex.

Oh, I thought you were just going to say like a naked African-American or some shit. He's hanging out in the projects and he is being chased by a patrolman, James is, under the suspicion of acting as a lookout for people stealing shit from cars and vandalizing and breaking into shit. Is it like an organized crime gang? Is that what he's in? No, it's just some kids in the projects fucking around and they said, yo, you're a lookout.

He just looked out. Who knows? The officer in his report wrote that, quote, Kirkland stated that he ran because he knew his companion, what his companion did was wrong and that he did not want to get caught. Well, no shit. Another reason why he didn't want to get caught had nothing to do with his companion and what they were doing. When they searched

Kirkland, they find six counterfeit $100 bills in his pocket. Oh, shit. That's federal shit right there. You can't have counterfeit money. And six $100 bills. That's not a mistake. No. It's not like he had eight 20s in his pocket and one of them was counterfeit.

He was like, I got it for 7-Eleven. I don't know. That's all the money he had. Six counterfeit $100 bills. All he had was fake bills. And they weren't bad either. That's the other thing. They're passable? They're passable. So that's another thing. That's scary. That's all the money he had. Six counterfeit $100 bills. All he had was fake bills. And they weren't bad either. That's the other thing. They're passable?

They're passable. So that's another thing where you're like, ooh, that's interesting. In court documents here, he describes himself as unemployed and living with his mother because in between boxing, he's unemployed. He's originally charged with criminal mischief on the original arrest. But then later on, they get him to plead guilty to forgery about the possession of the bills. And he ends up agreeing to serving two years probation on a plea. Wow.

So they're getting him as the culprit of making the bills. Well, just having them. Because that's what forgery is. Yeah, but that's why they only give him two years probation. So it's like, you're going to plead to that, but we know you didn't make them, clearly. You're a boxer. You're a fucking boxer. You don't have a printing press somewhere. Do you even have a house? You're a fucking boxer. You don't have a printing press somewhere.

Do you even have a house? You live with your mother. You don't have a printing press. No, you don't have any of this shit. So two years probation for you. He wouldn't give up who he got him from, though. Really? Which is interesting.

To his credit. Good for him. Now, November 6, 2003, he's trying to clear this shit out. Clear it out of his head. Fix his life. He's got that. He's in Washington, fix his life. He's got that. He fights. He's in Washington, D.C.

He fights Russell Spider-Man Jordan, non-linker, a career 15 and 10 fight. Spider-Man doesn't have a fucking page. Spider-Man does not have a page. I watched this fight. I saw this. There's video of this fight. Kirkland just overwhelms him. Really? I mean, this guy is overmatched.

He's just not ready for it. He's not ready for the onslaught. He's not ready for the power, and he can't handle it. And he's just basically running around for half a round trying to keep his head attached to his body until he's finally knocked out halfway through the first round. Wishing he had a web and he could escape the ring. He would love one of those, just to shoot a web out up to the top

and swing out to the balcony right now. Like, I quit. I quit because he is getting, it looks like he's just getting attacked by like a wild animal. Like by Doc Ock? Yeah. With eight arms just pummeling him? That's what it looks like, man. It really does.

It looks like when you see like a group of lions attack a gazelle. I may not have seen The Wire, but I read a lot of comic books. I didn't know what you were talking about, by the way, because I read no comic books. Doc Oc is Dr. Octopus. He was the guy that puts fucking eight arms on him. I hate comic books. I always did. As a kid, I was like, that's really immature.

I was like nine. I remember telling my cousin, like, dude, that's fucking way immature. I was like, what fucking babies read this shit? Nine. Meanwhile, I was doing it at my fucking, like, 19 years old. Well, now people are in their mid-40s going, have you seen the new episode of this? Get the fuck out of here. I'm not that guy.

No, I'll sit here and study criminal athletes instead of fake characters. I'm not that dork. No one's better. Let's just say that. So he beats the shit out of Russell Spider-Man Jordan, round one of eight, done. He's 11-0 right now. He's looking like a big-time prospect. done. He's 11-0 right now.

He's looking like a big-time prospect. He's starting to get a little bit of attention just for his style from little boxing publications, things like that, promoters, but it's not going as well as he wants. He's not making any money in these fights. Of course. That's the problem, too. He speaks at this point, mid-2004.

He talks about how frustrated he is. Well, yeah. He's been fighting for fucking nine years now, right? Yeah. He's about how frustrated he is. Well, yeah. He's been fighting for fucking nine years now, right? Yeah, he's excessively frustrated. Yeah, he has no money is the problem. He just has no money. Vanessa says that he then took a job at UPS, the United Parcel Service. They hired

him with forgery charges? That's amazing. They hired him with forgery charge. I don't know how he got that to happen. That's incredible. I don't know. Maybe the plea. I'm not sure. It was fraud, not forgery. So maybe it might have been a misdemeanor fraud to forgery i think he pled to uh he pleads to charge forgery he does you're right he pleads to forgery and two years and that's crazy that they would hire him with with a forgery charge when it's like counterfeit money that's a crazy charge to to be charged with when you're possessing people's fucking mail.

I would say. Like expensive shit. Vanessa, his girlfriend here, as we know of, said about the UPS job, quote, he said it's not enough money. How am I supposed to support you and a baby making $9 an hour? And I say that because Vanessa's pregnant. Oh, Jesus. And she's about to pop also. Really?

Yeah, she's about to pop. Nine bucks an hour in 2004? Yeah. What was he doing, folding boxes? That's what I mean. Yeah, UPS, I thought paid better than that. UPS pays way better than that. Maybe not there.

And plus, I'm sure he was as entry level as it can be. I'm not sure if he has a driver's license or anything. We have no idea here. Maybe that's what that forgery charge got him, was a $9 an hour paying job. That might have been it, too. It probably priced him out of, or pushed him right out of a driver job or something like that. What can Brown do for you?

Nine bucks an hour. Nine bucks an hour. Barely fucking make ends meet. Vanessa said of this, quote, he was always trying to find a way to get out of the situation he was in, trying to get out of the hood or whatever. I said, James, we're about to have a baby. You need to calm down and get back in the gym. She's like, look, nine dollars an hour isn't going to cut it.

Get your ass in the gym and focus, motherfucker. And it's probably smart. November of 2004, James and Vanessa's first son is born. Named? Of course. Jimmy, what's his name? James Kirkland Jr. You bet your ball sack. Junior.

Fuck. Obviously. Asshole. Obviously. My first guess was going to be Mandingo Warrior. Mandingo Jr. But yeah, he went with James fucking Jr. Fucking unbelievable. It was so funny. When I saw that, I said, I don't even have to look this up. It's James Jr.

But then later on, I'm like, I should look it up. Sure enough, it's fucking James Jr. I didn't even have to look it up. I could have just said it. So he's under a lot of pressure right now. Yeah. He hasn't fought in a few months. He hasn't fought since November of 2003.

And we're in 2004 now. Yeah He hasn't fought since November of 2003. Jesus. And we're in 2004 now. Yeah, he's got a big layover. He's been working at UPS. Things are not going well. And now he's got a son, which is even more pressure. It's tough. You know what I mean?

This is tough on the guy. So, I mean, I don't know what you do in this situation, but he finds something to do. Make more money? Well, in a way. Fake? In a way. Create? December 22 way. Create? December 22nd. Produce? No,

not produce. Definitely not produce. December 22nd, 2004, just three days shy of Christmas, the manager of a Dollar Tree store, Dollar Tree is a dollar store here where you buy shit. You buy garbage products for nothing. Was attacked in a parking lot.

The robber attacks him, robs him, gets away with $1,797 from this. I guess the guy was going to do a deposit. Bank drop. Bank drop at the end of the night. The store manager gives a description and ends up seeing a lineup later and picking James out of the lineup as the robber. So he didn't wear a mask. He didn't wear a mask. He's charged with aggravated robbery.

He doesn't know what to do. So his girlfriend calls a lawyer who she saw on TV, literally, you know, arrested. Do you want to call us today? She's got a stupid theme song. What the? She's watching People's Court and she's like, that guy can help me. She didn't know what else to do. She's not used to this, which is another thing.

She's not commercial break. to do. She's not used to this, which is another thing. Commercial break fucking lawyer. Commercial break lawyer. Nothing down. If you're listening to this, by the way, stop it. Don't hire lawyers you see on television. Stop it. Hastings and Hastings or fucking Lerner and Rowe. All of it's garbage. Don't fucking

use them. There's so many great attorneys in this country that are known as wonderful attorneys. You've never seen a commercial for any of them. Never. When was the last time you saw a fucking ad for Jose Baez? Never. You know when I saw it? On fucking court TV when he's defending Casey Anthony and gets her off. That's when I saw it.

That's exactly right. That's the commercial. That's the commercial. You don't need any more than that. Not this guy on TV. No. She didn't know what to do. She's losing her mind. She now has a brand new baby, and he's getting taken to jail, and they have no money. She's got a fucking commercial break lawyer. Yeah, I feel bad for this poor woman. He waited trial.

Everybody stayed with him, though, because they were all believed in him, and he had his little close-knit thing. His mother, Paula, wrote the judge. She said, sir, I just cannot believe my son committed the offense of which he's accused, which from his mother, I don't know what that would mean. That's the letter she's supposed to write. Yeah. He ends up pleading to the aggravated assault. He is sentenced to five years of aggravated robbery. I'm sorry, five years.

He does over two years. Wow. Over two years. Released in 2006 to serve eight years probation after that. So he's got a heavy probation, too. And all in all, all total, that's 10 years of punishment for this shit. Yeah. Don't rob people, goddammit.

Don't fucking rob people, especially with a weapon in your hand. Assholes. So he's released from prison in 2006. Vanessa said, quote, at that point right there, I was scared he was going to give up. When you come out of jail, you don't have nothing. You don't have a car. You don't have clothes. You don't have shoes.

He didn't know where to start. So that makes sense. She said she drove him to Walmart when he got out to buy him jeans and T-shirts. You know, just something. She drove him to the mall to get him a decent pair of shoes because, you know, I mean, not to sound racist, but a black guy's got to have decent shoes. They do. It's just that they judge each other by their shoes a thousand percent.

He may have some Wranglers on, but check out those fresh Js. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And you know this as a fact as a comedian. When you're on stage and there's a black guy in the first three rows, how many fucking times does he look at your shoes? Yeah. And you know this as a fact as a comedian. When you're on stage and there's a black guy in the first three rows, how many fucking times does he look at your shoes? Yeah. And his shoes are on the stage so that he can size yours up.

Yeah. Am I fucking your shoes better than mine? So they move in together at this point, Wells and Kirkland, because why not? They have a baby. What the fuck? Why not move in together? Vanessa said that he would bring home stray dogs. He's got a heart. He's got a heart.

He's got a heart. He does have a heart. And she would send them away, the dogs, because she was like, well, we can't even afford a baby. We're not fucking five dogs in the house, too. She's like, oh, that's cute. You got a dog. I'm going to go feed it.

And she's like, I sent it out for ice cream. Yeah, I said, he'll be back in a little while. He'll be back. He's going to pick up the pizza. They moved in with her mother, which is rough with the baby and all that. He begins training again. that. He begins training again. He begins training. Now, after this, once he gets out and he starts training, Pops has a stroke.

He's had two strokes up to now. He has a third stroke, and he just can't do it anymore. Physically, he doesn't have what it takes to do the training anymore. He can't stand there with him. He wants to select another trainer to be his head person to do all the thing, and he elects Wolf. He asks Anne Wolf to do the training anymore. You can't stand there with him. He wants to select another trainer to be his head person to do all the thing, and he elects Wolf. He asks Anne Wolf to do it. She said she can't coach.

He said, yes, you can. Before it's over, you'll be better at it than me. Don't worry about it. You can do anything you put your mind to. You live under a fucking boat, and you're here now. So, yeah. I can't believe she has the word can't in her vocabulary anymore. You know what I mean?

After all of that, how can you say I can't do it? I think she was trying to be polite to him, like, I'm not you. You know what i mean like after all of that how can you say i can't do it i think she's trying to be polite to him like i'm not you you know what i mean because that's her mentor she's trying to do that sort of thing yeah it's probably just one i don't know if i'm her i might walk outside and somebody say you can't fly i'd be like i don't know maybe i can because i've fucking done everything else um she would she really really put kirkland through the put the screws to him now on the training uh they would do the they'd get out in a field 110 degrees with tractor tires, flipping them, doing that whole thing. First fucking CrossFit. That's what she is.

She's like she made up her own CrossFit routine. They'd work the mitts. Punching mitts. Yeah. They'd work the mitts while he was wearing a plastic sauna suit and they turned the heat up in the gym. So this is what they do with like high school wrestlers. They turn the heat up to 110 and make them run around and make weight. Fuck.

This is what they do. But it wasn't to make weight. It was just to toughen them up. It's like putting them in the hot box in slavery. Yeah, that's what it is. They did road work. They pounded heavy bag. They hung from a truck outside.

Wow. Billingsley's old truck they hung outside. I mean, he's training like fucking Rocky. Yeah. Punching a side of beef in a freezer. Punching a side of beef and chasing a chicken. This is ridiculous. Running up a Russian hill with a log on his back.

This is what he's doing. Mr. Miyagi with Catch the Fly with the fucking tweezer thing. That's what we got going on here. Tweezer thing. What are they? Chopsticks, Jimmy. I think you're looking for it. I think you're looking for chopsticks would be the word.

Fuck, I'm stupid. Jesus, that's funny. Tweezer things. Tweezer things. Tweezer things? Okay, I've never heard that before. That's unbelievable. That is tremendous.

I can't believe that came out of my fucking mouth. Those tweezer things. Those tweezer things. Catch a fly. I'm trying to. You things. Those tweezer things. Catch a fly. I'm trying to. You know, them tweezer things the Orientals use. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, you know.

Fucking retarded. They grab the rice or whatever the fuck those people eat with them things. You know, that thing. They grab the raw fish and shit. There's always in shit afterwards. They grab the raw fish and shit. Oh, that's terrible. Jesus, all right. That is terrible we're all frisian. Oh, that's terrible. Jesus, all right.

That is terrible. He's out of prison. Yeah. Out of prison, ready to go. April 26th, or April 21st, 2006, he's ready for his 12th fight. Yeah. It is at the Omar Shrine Temple in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Okay.

He fights Manny Castillo, who is his first linked opponent. All right. Which I was excited, and I clicked on the link, and the fucking link is wrong. So never depend on Wikipedia for anything. Bastards. I never use Wikipedia. Like, literally, when we do a boxer or an MMA guy, I will use it because they have an easy-to-read list of their fights and records and where they are, and then I have to do

all the other. Then I have to like make sure that that information is correct. Basically, you go to Wikipedia for like birth date and name and then get the fuck out there. And not even names. They never have the full name on there. Wikipedia is terrible. I do it just like an outline. And then I'm like, now I have to fact check this shit because it's not going to be right.

And every time you get onto Wikipedia, they're like, donate some money to us. Why? All your shit's wrong anyway. So, yeah, at least we ask for money. But at least ours is fucking information is pretty accurate, I think. We figured it out. I haven't slept in a while. That's what happens when you involve everybody that reads your website and allow everybody to put shit on there. You fucking jerks.

This link does definitely not lead to a boxer. It leads to a former Kansas City Royals third baseman with a.242 lifetime batting average and three career home runs. Pretty sure he didn't fight him. No, he also played a year with Seattle, and his career was like 1982 to 1984, so he would have been like 45 years old at this point. He's not fighting. I don't think he's fighting this guy.

The actual fighter, who I had to track down in other places, not easily, by the way, is 13, 16, and 3 for his career. Wow. So he's about as good as a guy who played third base for the Royals. The other Manny that he fought that was the boxer, he beats, and by TKO at 2 minutes 37 seconds in round three of six, bringing his record to 12 and 0, going on to this 13th fight, May 5th, 2006, Lucky Star Casino again, Congo, Oklahoma, baby.

He fights David Estrada, an actual link to him. But again, wrong fucking link. Again, there's a link. The Estrada that it's linked to is a 26 and 6 career fighter, former USBA welterweight champion that lost to Sugar Shane Mosley in 2005. So that's a good, I'm assuming. That's a great fight. I saw that. I, I'm assuming. That's a great fight. I saw that. I'm like, okay, this is a different fight.

There's no way that this fighter, James, first of all, wasn't on his record, David Estrada's record. So I'm like, what the fuck? And then I said, oh yeah, he wouldn't be fighting in a casino in Oklahoma if he just fought Shane Mosley the year before. So that's not the right guy. The guy who actually it was is a different Estrada completely geez this was a tough one man uh this is why I haven't slept David Estrada this one is

known as the weasel oh like Pauly fucking Shore known as the weasel and he spells it w-e-e-z-e-l oh my god weasel you're a boxer I'm, being honest. I'm shocked that fucking Pauly Shore didn't spell it like that. I thought he did. He probably was pissed he didn't think of it. This guy is a 12 and 11 career fighter. Not the same as the other guy. This fight is over in the third round with a TKO at 105. He knocks people out in the third round.

He's 13 and 0 now, James. How about this real quick? Just to give James a little bit of credit, a guy that, desperate for money, went and robbed somebody to help pay for his family. Yeah. He's got a big heart. He goes to prison for it. He comes out in a system, and I hate to say it, but in a system that's built in America

and in Texas, where they're racist and they fucking- Yeah, Texas is not built for the underprivileged. Right. He's very underprivileged and he's black and he's been to prison and he gets a job with a fucking huge company and he gets back into fighting and he's now 13 and 0. He's doing it. He has the chance to get his life back on track- He really does, man.

After a small hiccup of just trying to take care of his family. Yeah, and where do you hear the opportunity? I still give him the credit, too. Like, at this point, I don't hate him at all. No, he grew up in a homeless shelter, for Christ's sake. I mean, the shit he did was stupid when he was trying to be a boxer and he's got a kid he can't go robbing. No, you can't. I mean, that poor guy.

What's a mistake? Yeah, he scared the fuck out of a guy. He scared the shit out of a guy who might be traumatized and everything else. And he had a weapon. He could have killed the fucking guy. Yeah, he's not doing great, but I mean, for where he came from, it could be much worse. To be 13-0 and only been in prison for two years? He's doing pretty alright. He's doing pretty

goddamn good, and he's not like Tommy Morrison. He hasn't acquired AIDS and denied it. Denied it! He's got to step up on other boxers we've had right away. And he's only been with one woman that we know of. That we know of, yeah. He's only got one pregnant so far. That's solid for a boxer. So yeah, we move on to June 3rd, 2006.

This is his 14th fight. It's at the Thomas and Mack Center in Vegas. All right. So it's a big one. He fights Ray Cunningham. Okay. Non-linker, obviously. Career 7 and 12 record, so a real barn burner here. He KOs or TKOs Ray Cunningham at two minutes and 16 seconds in round one so this knocks the

shit out of him these guys have no if you've got a guy who's got a career losing record they don't have any chance against this undefeated record journeyman and this guy's just so aggressive I mean it's it's insane so this brings them up to 14 and 0 and now we have there starts to be articles about him and people starting to notice him a little bit because he's fun to watch. I mean, if there's a card that he's on at the end of the night, all anyone can talk about is that one guy in there, that middleweight, that light middleweight, that guy was awesome. Yeah, that was a great fight.

They love watching him, and you can't help it. You don't even have to like boxing. You'll love watching this guy fight. It's just exciting. Like, if everybody fought like this, there would be no UFC. All right. The reason the UFC exists is because of plotting boxers staring at each other, throwing a jab here and there, dancing here and there.

Yes. All that shit. If everybody fought like him and, like, 87 Mike Tyson and like that, there wouldn't be UFC because it would be so – UFC is so boring compared to a James Kirkland fight. Really? So fucking boring. They never – UFC, half the time they're not touching each other and they're on their feet.

And then when they're on the floor, they're just hugging and wrestling around too. Yeah, they're on the floor. They're grappling. Right. Like we were watching grappling. In a general fight, you've got two rounds or you've got maybe 80 seconds of actual fighting. Outside of that, it's just fucking strategic dancing. This fight, James Kirkland, every fight, the bell rings.

And he's killing somebody. Nobody stops swinging until somebody falls. End of story. It's like high school fights. That's how it was. But with gloves on, the guys can throw. You would not watch one of his fights and go, I want to watch a couple guys grapple now. You'd be like, no, where are more of his fights?

I'm telling you right now. We have his promoter, a guy named Gary Shaw, silver-haired middle-aged white man, popping out of the woodwork for him. He says in this article, quote, he's a special kid. He can hit you with two hands with KO power. Right now, there's only a handful of people who know James Kirkland, but trust me, by this time next year,

a whole lot more will know about James Kirkland. Uh-oh. That's an ominous sounding quote, too. Watch out, motherfucker. He's coming. It's either he knows that he's going to be a great fighter, or he knows he's going to be a felon. He's going to kill 12 people, either one. He's going to kill people.

He's either going to be very successful at boxing, or he's going to be so frustrated that he's not successful at boxing, he's going to fucking murder people. He's going to murder people and bury them under his mother-in-law's floorboards. Or at least under a boat. Or under a boat. I couldn't decide between the floorboards or the boat. I swear I went back and forth. At least his mother's got a floorboard now.

I was like, he's got a floorboard. And Wolf had the boat. I'll go floorboard. We have an In Their Own Words here about this. This is from this article here. And it's him being a little cocky now. In Their Own Words, quote, The way I train and the ability that I have, there is no man at

154 that can fight me and beat me. I figure the only way I lose is if I beat myself by not training, not working hard. I feel I'm on the right track. I like it. So, yeah, you've got to have this kind of confidence and swagger. And even if you don't, you have to act like you do in boxing. Because the guy across from you has to feel like you think you can kick his ass. Otherwise

he's going to have confidence. You don't want him to have confidence. You want to have confidence. And I've got confidence for him. We've already kick his ass. Otherwise, he's going to have confidence. You don't want him to have confidence. You want to have confidence. And I got confidence for him. We've already covered his crime. The future here is all bright. It's all good. It's going to come out.

He's good now. Yeah. He is good now, right? It's crime and sports. We've had crime. Now let's cover this sport. Now it's just all sports from here on out, right, guys? He's going to be a Hall of Famer, right?

I don't think so. I don't think so. That wasn't enough for us, guys. Not enough for us. Go on. Has a third round win on July 28th of 2006. Has a second round win on October 6th against a couple of non-linker, non-important guys here. December 1st, 2006, he's fighting his 17th fight.

It's at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California. And I actually know that one because that is one of the ones that Sarah did social media for. All right. It was Chumash. All right. It was Chumash. All right. And they did. They have old comics and washed up music acts.

And it's in the middle of the fucking desert. It literally is in the middle of nowhere. Hart comes to town and people lose their fucking mind. Oh, if Hart came to town, they'd be advertising for a year for Hart. I'm talking people that make Hart look like nothing. Hart was great in the 70s. Kenny Loggins. Shit, if the log came there, the desert would be on fire, baby. People would be coming in.

It would look like. Is that him? The heat is on? Is that him? No. Yeah, the heat is on. Highway to the Danger Zone. The Caddyshack song.

Yeah, the Caddyshack song is great. Basically every movie soundtrack is either him or Randy Newman. It's like, we need an upbeat one that's kind of rocky. We'll go Kenny Loggins. We need something kind of soulful. We'll go Randy Newman. We need Love Story, Randy Newman. Yeah, Randy Newman.

There we go. Perfect. We need something where there's sex going on. Go get Kenny Loggins. Go get Loggins. He's going to rip it up with Highway to the Danger Zone. Yeah. I just found out they had that song play three times in Top Gun.

Three fucking times? And then they had different versions of it, too. They had a version where it was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, like a slowed down version of the guitar riff. They had that. They used it like score. It's like over the Top with Sylvester Stallone.

That song from the beginning. I don't even know what it's called, but that song is crazy cool, though. I love that song. Meet me halfway across the sky, Frank Stallone. It's great. At every point, no matter what is going on in the movie, there is a score version of that in the background lending to the mood of that scene like it's a tender moment between him and his son it's just

literally just a piano deed just that in the background if it's like them working out it's like this big like wow wow wow guitar riff version of it you're like what is fucking going on that's our theme song we gotta have it everywhere spend on this shit i wish they would have done that with like uh young guns that song from young guns the second young guns was the bon jovi song yeah fucking rad was it bon jovi it was bon jovi right yeah it's fucking great song though yeah if they'd have done that everywhere in that movie, I'm in. It wasn't exactly Winter Takes It All from the end of Over the Top, though. Winter takes it all.

Trying to take it over the top. You know how it goes, Jimmy. So good. I love that song. I love that movie. I'll rip your shit and arm off. I love the guy, Bull. Sidetrack for one second.

I apologize. We honestly rarely sidetrack. That's the motor oil guy, right? No, it's not. No, that's a different guy. No, it's the guy Bull. Side track for one second. I apologize. We honestly rarely side track. That's the motor oil guy, right? No, it's not. No, that's a different guy. No, it's the other guy. Bull Hurley is the bald guy who's like the champ at the end. He's like five-time champ.

Rip your shit and arm off. He goes, I rip your shit and arm off. And I'm like, I just want to. It doesn't even make sense. That's the thing. We had an idea for a video where I want to send Jimmy into places and just challenge, have him challenge people to arm wrestling for no reason. Because Jimmy's like 5'8", white dude.

I just want to have him put in. With a trucker hat and flip it on backwards. Bang his elbow on the table and go, rip your shit and arm off. Just to random people, like at the bank. Just walk into the convenience store and be like, Come on, Trevor, let's go. Rip your shit and arm off. They'd be like, what?

What are you talking about? Who is this guy? What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Do you want your balance, sir? Do you need any ice or stamps? Rip your shit and arm off. Pants are plastic, motherfucker. You still have to pay, even if you rip my shit and arm off.

I'll bet I can get a bagger to say, what's your fucking problem? Yeah. By the way, at the end of Over the Top, they say a million times it's double elimination. Bull only loses the final match and then it's over. That's it. What the fuck? Except if you're Bull, Sly should have had to go beat him again. Two out of three.

Well, he didn't rip his shit and arm off. He did not rip his shit and arm off. He failed to do that. Okay. That's two losses. If you haven't seen Over the Top, I apologize. You should watch Over the Top because it's hilariously awful. You fucking blew it if you haven't seen it.

It's awful and great. He's got a kid and he's trying to teach him life lessons. In a truck while arm wrestling across the country. You and me get in this truck and we're going to arm wrestle our way across the country. And I love how, yeah, I'm going to arm wrestle for custody of my son. What? I don't think that works. I don't think that works. I don't think that works in court of law.

It's hilarious. Moving on from over the top. I don't know how. Let's just talk about over the top for the next time. Sorry, guys. We're going to suspend the rest of the episode. The guy that drinks motor oil. That's fucking crazy, though.

It is. That's ridiculous. And they show him drinking Pepto-Bismol in the next scene. So. All right. All right. Chumash. Chumash. Back at Chumash. Wow, we got way off base. By the way, his next three fights are also going to be a Chumash. Really? He's in a Chumash

kind of zone here. They put him in a room? In a Chumash groove. Yeah, they gave him a room. He's like, I'll stay in here forever. Fuck it. I'll stay. It's better than the boat. So he fights David Torabito, non-linker, of course. This man has 22 and 16 career. Not great, journeyman.

James K.O.'s him in 135 of round four of eight, bringing him to 17 and O. Next two fights are both at Shumash. They're against non-linkers, an eighth round TKO and a 10th round unanimous decision. He's going the distance with this shit. His fights are not getting noticed now because he needed to really cement his— after that article and everything, he really needed to cement his position

by knocking the shit out of people in dominating fashion. And if you're fighting a ten-round unanimous decision against a non-linker at the Chumash Casino, you're not really seen as the next hot idol. You know what I mean? The couple, him and Wells, get separated now. They have two kids. They get separated with that. He ends up having one more, so he's got a total of three children, which isn't bad for

us, for what we do here. That's not a lot. It's pretty decent. Especially when you're a junior. Right. You come from shit. You have no money. All there is to do is fuck.

Yeah. It happens. Generally, that makes kids. And generally, yeah. They're not. Yeah. A lot is to do is fuck. And generally that makes kids. And generally, yeah, they're not. Yeah, a lot of these guys, too, they're not that bright, these athletes. They don't use protection. They don't use protection. That's the problem.

They don't understand how that works. They aren't yanking out. It's very complicated. They're just filling them up and crossing their fingers. Filling them up. Filling them up and crossing their fingers. I just pictured a water balloon for some reason. Like, filling them up like a water balloon.

That's terrible. That is gross. Filling them up. Jesus Christ. Filling them up and crossing their fingers. Ah, it's coming out of other places. Open them slow. It's coming out of other places.

It's so, that's disgusting. Their fucking ears. So they get separated. Vanessa tells James what she said. She said, quote, I know you think I talk too much or don't want you to have fun, but I just want what's best for you. In other words, I feel like she's saying, I know you think I'm a fucking nag, but you know, you're an insane person and you need someone to nag you.

That's what it is. You need help through life. Yes. So September 1st, 2007, he has his 20th fight. It is at the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma, Washington. So that's another, we've talked about that one on a couple before. He fights Mohammed Syed. Fucking Oz reference. Again, another show you need to watch. Mohammed Syed is odd. that's another. We've talked about that one in a couple before. He fights Mohammed Syed. Fucking Oz reference.

Again, another show you need to watch. Mohammed Syed is odd. It's Oz. Mohammed Syed is the Muslim guy in Oz. He's the guy. No, I don't know. He's the guy who wears the denim shirt, the beads with the prayer cap and all that shit, and he speaks very clearly.

Of course he does. He's like an author and shit. Mohammed Syed. Anyway, watch Oz, goddammit. He has a beef with Syed. But he did not fight him. Yeah, he has a beef with that. Abisi at one point.

But he doesn't fight that Oz. That Mohammed Syed. Non-linker with a career 42-10 record. That's great. Which is fantastic for a non-linker. That's a non-linker with that kind of record? He must have fought garbage or something because I was shocked when I saw that. 42-10.

Sure, it's not 10-42. Is this his first loss? No, it's 42-10. Sure, it's not 10-42. Is this his first loss? No, it's 42-10. He's old. No, no, no. He's old by now. Is this our man's first loss? No.

James K.O.'s him, knocks him out at 232 of round two of 10. That's good. I feel like this guy was on his way out of a decent career. So he's now 20-0. That's awesome. 20-0 sounds great for James. That really sounds good november 30th has his 21st fight against uh it's at chumash again god forbid they need to

bring people to the desert he fights alan the alan the dream shatterer conyers the dream shatterer shatterer that's a tough fucking nickname that's one here. Yeah, he's a career 12 and 10 fighter. That's too long. Dream shatterer. That's awful. Shatterer? Shatterer. That's a terrible word.

That's three syllables. Yeah, when I was writing it. I just had to count that because it's such a weird word. When I was writing it down, I'm like, am I spelling it? Am I putting an extra R on there? Like, it just doesn't work right at all? It looks ugly, too. It doesn't look right.

It's terrible. This fight was wild. This is another fight I saw here. They came out throwing. Both these guys came out just dropping bombs. Kirkland actually got knocked down. There was just a stiff right hand that knocked Kirkland down for half a second. He got right back up and just started.

I mean, they were just going at it. It was very interesting, this whole thing here. So this fight ends in a TKO at 256 in round one. Finally, he just, yeah. He figured it out. He figured it out, beat this guy until he couldn't do it anymore. Round one. That's right at the end of round one, too.

So he doesn't let up. He doesn't go, ah, 10 seconds left in the round. I'll take it easy. He's like, I better fight. I better end this now. This brings him to 21-0. Now, his next fight is May 17, 2008. It's his 22 better fight. I better end this now. This brings him to 21-0. Now, his next fight is May 17, 2008. It's his 22nd fight.

It's at the Star of the Desert Arena in Nevada, in Vegas. He fights Aramasele. Aramasele Albert, he fights. Aramasele Albert. He's a career. He's a linker. Good fighter. A career 24-6-1 fighter.

Uh-oh. Only six. He has the craziest fucking lump on his head that I've ever seen in my life. Really? He's got a lump that is about the size of a... That James Kirkland gave him? No, no, no. Or he walked into the room with that?

It's like one of those Easter peanut butter eggs. He already has it? It's on his forehead, on the right side of his forehead. It's a huge, huge lump he just comes into the he comes into the ring with that already yeah and they make comment about it too they're like that didn't happen in sparring that's not an accident he's had that on his head since he was a kid so he's got this big lump on his head that he fights with this guy which is crazy this guy comes out swinging too they both come out swinging uh it's a minute into the first round they're just i mean

this is this never stops they're swinging there's someone's getting knocked out in the first round and this one's coming off his head or that thing's coming off his head james drops him with a quick left hook that you barely even saw really it's one of those you barely even saw it there was like a second delay and then the guy fell down it was one of those like he didn't even know what happened and then he's like why can't i stand up he pops right back up, and James is on him one punch, and the ref jumps in and calls it. Really? Albert pops up, but his legs are juggler. He shouldn't have let it go on, the ref.

But he let Kirkland come in for one punch, and Albert kind of fell against the ropes, and then they jumped in and called it. That's nice, though. And Kirkland looked pissed. He was like, what can you do and call it? I want to beat his ass more. He's an angry fighter. It's great.

He needs to understand, though, that stoppage is the win. That's the win. That's the paycheck. And this win is for something. This win, this fight, was for the vacant WBO light middleweight title. That's why he wants it. He wants it convincing. Yes.

So he does it. He's got a belt now. 22-0, and he's a champ. It's a minor champ. It's not a major title. But a champ nonetheless. He's got a belt now. 22-0, and he's a champ. It's a minor champ. It's not a major title. But a champ nonetheless. A champ is a champ. A man that's been to prison is now a champion.

Is now has a belt. Yeah. And he's getting paid money. Something else happens to him that's even bigger than that here. The attention draws. This draws the attention of the boxing world. Okay. The video of this is a huge hit on YouTube.

Oh. This video is amazing. Oh, yeah. This is 2008? Yeah. They're swinging like crazy. Two knockdowns in a minute. I mean, it's a wild fight. Look it up.

It's so much fun to watch. And so everyone sees it, and it gets passed around a lot. And some people at a company called Golden Boy Promotions find him, who is Oscar De La Hoya's company. Oh, OK. Now, Oscar De La Hoya, even if you're not a boxing fan, you should probably know who Oscar De La Hoya is. Famous Olympian. Pretty boy.

Dresses like a girl. Yeah. We all know who he is. Dresses like a woman. He does. Those fishnet photos are amazing. Yeah, they are pretty funny here. That's pretty awesome.

They are funny. I hate his boxing style. I hate his Olympic point style. De La Hoya is the opposite of Kirkland. Really? De La Hoya is like, I want it to go all 12, and I want to never get touched and jab you until I win on points. He's the op. Delahoy is the opposite of Kirkland. Really? Delahoy is like I wanted to go all 12 and I want to never get touched and jab you until I win on points. Whereas this guy is like

punch me if you want. I'm swinging for the heels. I'm going to kill you. I don't give a shit. So he signs with Golden Boy Promotions as to get promoted this way. He is guaranteed at least $150,000 a fight right now. Really? From a kid who was in a homeless shelter, had nothing. He's guaranteed $150,000

per fight at least. Wow. Depending on who he fights. $150,000. Possibly more. That's the minimum though. This is a guy that's been to prison. Yeah. And now he's making if he fights twice in a year, he's making $300,000. That's more than that guy's career earning potential

you would have thought at six when he's in a homeless shelter. That guy's not going to make 300 grand in his career. In his life, that guy's going to be lucky to make 30. And he's going to do it in a year if he does two. Two fights. Two fights. So in 2008, both Ann Wolf, the trainer, and James are featured on A Real Sports with Brian Gumbel. Holy shit.

Oh, yeah. The feature was talking about the whole thing, the whole them. They talk about Ann Wolf a lot during this. It's really interesting. She was pulled over while they were filming with one of her trainees in the car. The trainee was driving, and she was pulled over and handcuffed along with this boxer out in front of the gym. She was eventually released, but the boxer was arrested on suspicion of auto theft. Oh, shit.

And so it was a big deal because she was pissed off that she thinks the cops were looking for them and that sort of thing. Profiling. Were profiling them. And I guess Kirkland was outside the gym when they saw it. And she was like, stay over there. Stay over there. You don't know the last thing you fucking need is to get arrested again.

She said, quote, about the whole thing. They asked her, what did he do? And she said, quote, I don't know what these kids do. I try to help these kids and this shit happens. She was just pissed. She's like, this fucking, I don't know what these kids do. I try to help these kids and this shit happens. She's just pissed. She's like, this fucking shit. God damn it. So she's upset about this whole thing and I don't blame her.

But they show their whole thing on Real Sports. There was another segment of HBO Sports, too, that they did a thing on Kirkland and the training with Wolf and his story about finding pops and all that sort of thing. So now they're trying to make him even like this marketable, sympathetic. They're trying to market him. Rags to riches. It's a big deal. When you get a promoter, that's what they're going to try to do. So November 22nd, 2008, this is his

24th fight. It's at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Hitting the fucking big time now that you're with Oscar. He fights Brian Vera, who's a good fighter, career 23 and 11 fighter, a tough fighter he's real tough his style doesn't match well with with uh with kirkland as far as that goes curry he's not going to come out and just trade blows with kirkland he's a good boxer this fight ends in kirkland winning a eighth round tko okay so this shows that he can go eight rounds keep it together together, not slip out, and still get fight stops.

That's really impressive, honestly, because that was the thing they were worried about with Tyson back in the day, what happens when someone takes him 12, and he proved, I'll just win by decision. But this happens here. He's 24-0. March 7, 2009, his 25th fight is against—it's at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. It's another good one. He fights Joel Julio of Colombia. He's a career 38 and 4 fighter.

Wow. So, I mean, this fight was a war. Yeah. Watch this on YouTube. It's a half hour. It's a big one. Silicon Valley, that's a big deal. This fight's amazing, though.

It's a half hour of nothing but two guys pummeling the living shit out of each other. I like it. I don't know how either one of them lasted until the sixth round. Put it that way. That's where it went to? It went to six rounds. I don't know how either one of them lasted because they were just beating each other senseless. They both went down multiple times.

That's fucking boxing. It was awesome. And finally, in the sixth round, end of the sixth round, Kirkland was just, I mean, he started working him at the end of the sixth. Yeah? He got his groove. He worked him over. And the ref went over and waved it off in between rounds, said that Julio couldn't come out for the seventh. Awesome.

He waved it off because you could see him over there. He was cut, lumped. His eyes were, he was fucked up. I mean, he was getting his ass kicked out. Kirkland's a bad man. Absolutely. I love this guy. You got to like him for now.

You know what I mean? You want him to succeed. Yeah. You've got to like him for now, you know what I mean? You want him to succeed. You want a guy like this to succeed. So now he is set, after this, he's set to fight a guy named Mike Walker on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton fight card. What? Which is huge. That's a big fight. Being on any fight with Ricky Hatton and Pacquiao, that's crazy.

So that's big. It's a nice payday. He's going to make over $150,000 for that fight. It's just tremendous for him. Now, we have it in their own words about this. This is about still the dangerous situations in his life that he still encounters, even though he has all of this, in their own words. Quote, where I stay in East Austin, they look at you not just as a fan or a friend.

They also look at you as a target because you have access to money. Now you're like a money target. Oh, he's got money, man. These boxers making this type of money. So they start looking at you as a friend. They also look at you as a target because you have access to money. Now you're like a money target. Oh, he's got money, man. These boxers making this type of money. So they start looking at you as a target instead of looking at you as a friend. You bet. And this is what happens to countless. The continent thing. It happens countless times to this whole deal. Now, on April 19th,

2009. You know who else went through this shit was the guy with that fucked up name. I can't think of his name. He's a boxer. That be a boochie? No, the little skinny bald guy that was from New York. Guy we covered or no? No, we haven't covered him.

Jesus Christ, could be anybody. He's a, fuck. He's got such a fucked up name. Not sure. He was robbed by fucking rappers constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget his name. He got sucker punched out front of a Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget his name. He got sucker punched out front of a fucking hotel, and they robbed him, took his car or something.

Yeah. He had like a Maserati or something. They stole that and drove it through the streets of New York. He got jumped in a fucking- Jesus Christ. In a club a bunch of times. He's a bad dude, though. He's a complete asshole.

It happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. It happens all the time. And he's saying that we're in 2009. He says later on, and we'll get into the details of it, but he says around this time he was robbed. Okay.

And that's where this quote came from of him being- Like Clinton did. Says he's got danger. Yeah. So now April 19th, 2009, we are in Austin at the Crockett Center where he's actually had a fight. Yeah. There's no fight tonight.

It's the Saxet Gun Show today. It's one of the largest organizations of its kind in Texas. It includes a monthly show in Austin, and the group hosts at least 38 shows a year around the state. So these people are selling guns everywhere. That's Texas. It's Texas, yeah. Officers

are staking out the gun show, and they follow Kirkland, and he's there. He's with a 20-year-old woman. They have a black Cadillac. They follow him through the thing. They end up pulling him over and he's there. He's with a 20-year-old woman. They have a black Cadillac. They follow him through the thing. They end up pulling him over as he's leaving. And in the car, lo and behold, they find a.40 caliber handgun. Guess what he is?

A felon. Guess what he's not allowed to have? A.40 caliber handgun. A.40 caliber handgun. They also find a box of.40 caliber ammunition. God damn it. And they find a letter from Kirkland's probation officer that grants him permission to leave the state for a boxing match. The whole but not a letter.

But I say you can have a weapon. Yeah. So he is arrested right there. God damn it. On the spot for possession of a firearm by a felon. Oscar De La Hoya is not happy about this. I'm sure he says, quote, I'm very disappointed in him. It hurt me because we do believe in him and we want to create something big.

Yeah. He says, he continues to say, I have to say that I put some of the blame on myself. I was too late to talk to Kirkland and take him under my wing because we just recently signed him and we had to deal with other fighters. I want to take that responsibility. So he's actually, Delahoye is trying to be a man about the thing and be like, look, you know, maybe I could help. A man in fishnets.

Yeah, a man in fishnets. He stood there with a reporter putting a microphone in his face. He's standing there in fishnets and he goes, this is fucking embarrassing. His behavior is embarrassing me. Regardless of what I'm wearing, his behavior is embarrassing to me. I don't care what I'm wearing. Now, James has a different story, of course. He didn't just go in, buy a gun, and walk out.

That didn't happen. That's the 20-year-old's gun. No. Now, a lot of this is going to be quotes from him. I'm not going to do it in their own words because it would be a trillion of them. We'll save that for later. But he says, and this is a quote from him, basically, I got robbed previous to me buying the gun. So I thought it was in my best interest to protect my kids.

So I thought about just going to the gun show, buy a gun, even though I already knew I was a felon. I was just like, you know, I'll get this for protection. And even though I tried to get it from a private owner, it all backtracked on me. I signed my name and gave him my ID and just got in a world of trouble. Well, yeah, dipshit, obviously. They don't do background checks at fucking gun shows. We know that. Well, they do minor ones.

We'll get into this. He says, I'd say the robbery was a week and a half before the incident, I guess when he was arrested. The reason I didn't report it, he didn't report the robbery, is because the person had a mask on or something like that. Or something like that. What the fuck kind of a line is that? He had on a mask or some shit. I don't know.

Didn't see his face. Here's the thing. I understand where he's coming from because I was robbed at gunpoint and that's why I have guns. Because of that. But guess who's not a felon? You're not a felon. That's the thing. You're not a felon.

So I understand where he's coming from in the fact that you want to protect yourself, and I don't carry cash anymore. There's a lot of things I do differently because of it. But I didn't commit a crime prior to or after. No, he says, my knowledge was how can you do anything about it? How can you get justice done if I just say, oh, I seen the robber and he was just in some car? Well, there's license plates. There's a lot of different things you can do. He said he had a mask on.

They're going to be like, what color was the car? You don't know the color of the car and you don't know the color of the car because you're scared. There's a logic that just goes into it that there's no justice is going to get done behind it. So he says the robbery happened just as he was arriving home one night. behind it. So he says the robbery happened just as he was arriving home one night. He said he didn't even have time to get out of the car when a gunman came up, pointed a gun in his face and stole everything he had and ran away in the car, got in a car and took off. A lot of people in this too, it was reported when they interviewed a bunch of people, it was said that Kirkland went to the gun show, bought a gun, left the show, then returned again to try to buy a second gun.

Jesus. That's what they're saying he did. You got one. You got away with it. Stay home. Kirkland says, no, no, no. He says, quote, that's nonsense. I love him using the word nonsense, by the way.

That's nonsense. Excuse me, mister. That is nonsense, sir. No, that's just silly Billy talk there. He said, the reason I went back was because a lot of people were telling me, hey, no, you're a felon. You're a felon. I said, I know, but the dude because a lot of people were telling me, hey, no, you're a felon. You're a felon. I said, I know, but the dude did a background check on me, and he said I was good. So my whole mind frame was to go back in there and say, I want to go back to the dude and make sure and ask him, did you run my name, and I was good.

No, that's not what happened at all. So he went back in the gun show. He's like, I got away with it, y'all. I'm going to get another. Yeah, he says his plan was to tell the guy that he bought the.40 caliberck from the guy that he bought it from that he'd gone to someone else to purchase a gun also and they denied him due to a domestic pending domestic violence case which wasn't actually true but he was just testing him okay to see how that would fly right he's just lying all over the place and he's lying about the lie. Kirkland, the guy said basically instead of the man saying, yeah, no, I didn't do your background check or whatever, the whole thing went badly.

He said, so I went back there and I told him, you know, I got a case, the family violence case. I lied to the dude. I said I had a family violence case pending. And when I went to another person, tried to buy another firearm, they said, blah, blah, blah, the thing I just said. case pending. And when I went to another person, tried to buy another firearm, they said, blah, blah, blah, the thing I just said. I said, when I went to another dude to try and buy a gun, the guy said, no, you got a family violence case pending. I said to the gun dealer, so did you really run my name in? I just really told him to see what he was going to say as far as running my name. He said, I wouldn't have sold you no gun if you were a felon.

Okay. He said, that's exact quote. And so they went back and forth. And so he said, I wouldn't have sold you no gun if you were felon. Okay. He said, that's exact quote. Okay. And so they went back and forth. And so he said, did you run my name? Blah, blah, blah. And then he said, quote, and he got all uppity about the situation. I said, look here now. Look here now.

Nonsense. He got uppity. It was nonsense. He said, look here now. I do not want the gun. I will give the gun back to you. So the guy got up, got a little uppity about it. And so I said, I'm going to let you calm down. Meanwhile, while you calm down, I'll come back and holler at you. And he was like, all right. But it wasn't all right, because as

soon as he left, that's when he got arrested. Undercover agents, ATF agents, too. This is police, alcohol, tobacco, firearms. Yeah. So basically. That's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. So now he's trying to throw the gun dealer under the bus saying he didn't run my name, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He says, quote, at the time there was already detectives that was undercover federal agents watching the whole gun show and they happened to go over and asked about the whole situation.

And then it was like the gun dealer saying, this dude's asking about buying a firearm. He bought one earlier today, but now he's telling me he has a felony or something. So the gun dealer told on him. And so they, you know, whatever. They looked through the records. They saw that he signed with his own ID. He said they didn't book him right away. They let him leave the gun show.

And then they pulled him over and he had it in his vehicle. And so they stopped him and that's what they ended up. That's possession. That's possession. That's possession by a felon. He says, like, when they pulled him over, too, he's like, I just want to give the gun back. And they were like, no, you have a gun. You can't just say I want to give it back and then it's okay now. He said, when I see a bunch of agents follow me, I didn't know they were undercover,

but they just seemed suspicious and shaky. So I was like, I just need to go. So then he took off, and then they followed him and fucking pulled him over and arrested him. And then he says, too, they tried to say that he tried to bring the gun back into the show because he said he said he did that to give it back. And he said, I never brought the gun to the show. It was inside the vehicle the entire time. So that's when I was like, you know, well, you don't want the gun. I don't want the gun.

I'll just give it back to you. Well, where from the vehicle? Fucking idiot. So anyway. That's what happens. That's his side of the story. That's a messy lie. Sounds like, yeah, it sounds like he wanted a gun and he tried to make up some shit to

get out of it. Now, April 29th or 24th, 2009, his lawyers are asking for a furlough. This is a bail hearing. They're asking for a furlough so that he can get to Nevada to cut eight pounds and make weigh in. Federal prosecutors are saying he's a flight risk. Yeah. So the judge says, quote, sometimes I have to make these kinds of decisions, and when

I do, it's never fun. I know it's affecting a lot of people. Yeah. And the judge denies bail. Oh. And he is turned over to the feds. Shit. Instead of getting bail, he's turned over to the federal government.

Ouch. Yeah. And now he's on, he's still got four years left of his parole. His probation. Probation. And he's now got a weapon. And now he's got that going. So he's going to have to.

OK, go on. This is not great for him. Yeah. So everybody's in court. His trainers, his manager, his mother, his son. Mother, Vanessa's there with the kids. Everybody's there. So Schaefer, who represents Golden Boy Boxing, and Kirkland's attorney and his co-manager

is a guy named Michael Miller. They said that they would, to the court, they proposed, look, let him go to Vegas. We'll hire an off-duty police officer approved by the court, and he can escort Kirkland to Vegas and stay with him 24 hours a day. We'll pay for it. They said, quote, we were going to assume the responsibility and guarantee the judge that James would come to Las Vegas on Wednesday or Thursday, fight on Saturday and return home on Sunday under the strict supervision of an off-duty police officer. The judge wouldn't allow it. I mean, that's a nice way of trying to get it done.

Yeah, that's as hardcore as you can go. His mother said, he's just got to wake up. And then this is his wake-up call right here. Schaefer said, who's a silver-haired, middle-aged white man from Golden Boy, he said, quote, we support James and we want him to take care of his issues. We're not going to abandon him because he has a serious problem that he's facing. We are silver-haired, middle-aged white men. We are making a lot of money off of him.

We're going to make money off this guy. So, yeah, this was, I guess, the Austin police and the ATF worked together on this whole thing. Like I said, still on probation. Whole deal. And by the way, this is the prime of his career. He needs to be fighting at this point. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

He needs to. This is where he's going to make his money. His biggest paydays are right now. Yeah, in the mid to late 20s, early 30s is when he's going to do it. So he's supposed to fight, if you remember, on the Hatton Pacquiao card. And he's scratched from that because he can't go. So that's a bunch of money down the drain. Schaefer, a silver-haired, middle-aged white man, said, quote, we did what we could.

We even submitted a letter to the court suggesting we'd assign an off-duty police officer to stay with James at all times. We even had selected an officer. The court just wasn't moved, though. They won't let him travel. The fact is he got caught buying a gun with his own ID. He didn't use it. He didn't even threaten anybody. He didn't shoot anybody but he bought a gun. He shouldn't have done

that and that was a really bad decision on his part. We'll see what happens. Hopefully he'll get through this. We'll definitely have him move out of Austin. They're saying stop home. We always say don't move back home. He never left this fucking guy. Get the fuck out now. Yeah.

July 2009, he pleads guilty to gun possession by a convicted felon. Yeah. Faces six years in jail for that. Maximum 10 years. It's like six to 10 is the normal range. Holy shit. Sentencing is on September 29th, 2009. The federal guidelines call for 47 to 57 months.

Wow. However, there's an outpouring of support for him from the community, including Oscar De La Hoya comes to court and testifies for him on his behalf and sentencing the whole deal. Everybody's there supporting him. And the judge says, quote, I have taken a chance with regard to reduction of the sentence in your case, Mr. Kirkland. I am impressed by what you have done and what you can do with regard to young people who have had problems and difficulties growing up as you had. What you do with your life, to a large extent, has an effect on what I do in the future with regard to other people. So if you foul up out there, you're going to hurt someone else who comes before me and gives me the same story. Do you understand?

Yeah, he's like, don't fuck this up for other people here. He's sentenced to two years in federal prison. That's which is amazing that's very lenient yeah yeah um i was guessing he was going to get the rest of his probation uh in in prison plus some absolutely that's it i mean i was i was guessing this story was over and that's where he is now yeah no i delahoy is in there and he's saying look man we need role models and he could be a role model these kids i want them under my wing. De La Hoya tells the judge, you let them out, and I'll take them under my wing. I'm the golden boy.

And here's the other part, too. Nobody got hurt in this situation, Judge. No, that helps. There's no victim here. Not yet. The only victim is that the criminal justice system is the victim, and that he bought a gun when he shouldn't have. Exactly. That's the victim.

He's going to get credit for approximately six months' time served. All right. In addition, he earns good credit for behavior, and he can serve the final six months of his sentence in a halfway house, as we know from Texas law in the past. Oscar said, quote, Oscar De La Hoya, quote, with time served, good behavior in a halfway house, we can fight him within the year. He's only 25. He did the crime.

He's going to do the time. It's up to him after that. He's only 25. That's great. He says, on going to jail and going to prison on the conviction, James says in their own words, quote, basically your dreams are all shattered. You're hurting physically. You're hurting mentally, mentally, spiritually. Everything is just like a sore thumb. Everything about you is just gone. You lose not just access to the boxing. You lose access to your family, your loved ones, the people that really care about you, people that have been backing you up for many,

many years. So, yeah. Yes and no. Yes and no. He's just disappointed he's going away from his career, I think. But here's the thing. He's still with a robbery, a fucking armed robbery, and now buying a weapon as a felon,

he still hasn't gotten a punishment that's harsh enough to correct him. No, he's ahead of the curve. He's gotten two years on either case and that's not enough. He's not allowed to throw any punches in jail. No. He's not allowed to shadow box. I would hope not.

He's not allowed to just shadow box and sell by himself. That's ridiculous. Any punches, he goes in the hole. That's the rule they told him. Yeah, it's ridiculous. He's not allowed to do it because he doesn't want anybody. They said don't show anyone else how to punch. Don't punch.

They just don't want anybody. They don't want any punches. We don't want any encouragement of throwing fists. All he can do is run, basically. That's the thing. He's about 172, 173 pounds in prison, which is fine. That's not bad, actually. That's less than 20 pounds off his fighting weight.

He fights at 154? I mean, guys who weigh in at 154 walk around at 163 anyway. You know what I mean? They cut the weight. So he can cut 10 pounds pretty easy. Yeah, absolutely. And he hasn't been able to train. So once he gets sparring, he's going to be able to do it.

Yeah, that's the thing. Prison food, too. September 2010, he's released. He's vowed to remove the negative influences from his life. He says he's communicated with Bernard Hopkins, who's a boxing champion who was in prison for many years and got out and totally turned his life around.

He moved away from Austin. He moves to Vegas where he's training. That's not a good place to live, though. For a boxer, for training, problem is, too, he also parts ways with Ann Wolfe at this point, which is stupid. Parts ways with her, says that she's just part of the whole thing. She doesn't know why.

She said it was his decision, not mine. I don't know. She would never talk any shit about him, though. That's nice. Not one word of shit. And he didn't really talk shit about her either. He would be like, yeah, you know, just looking for something different, that sort of thing. Just looking for something different.

He finds Kenny Adams, who's an old military-style trainer, but he doesn't push him as hard as Ann Wolfe does. See, and that's what it is. That right there is what it is. She's the only one in his life that has punished him in any way. He's just trying to teach him how to have better fundamentals and form, and Adams says, quote, you can't take an abundance of shots and continue on in the boxing world. If I can teach him defense and to have patience,

I feel like I've really done something to help him have a longer career. When a guy takes a lot of shots like that, their careers are somewhat shot. That's true, but that takes away his style. Right. That's like taking the claws off a tiger and saying, well, now he'll be able to fight easier. Now he'll be able to claw the shit out of him with his back feet. It doesn't matter. Her point and his point are now just completely opposite.

The way she trained him was he doesn't need defense if he knocks the fuck out of them. He's aggression, aggression, aggression, and that's his whole, that's everything. This guy's telling him back up. Yeah, he wins half his fights before they start because of the aggression. We have an in their own words on this and his release and his happiness in their own words. Quote, I don't have one negative

person around me. I'm not going to let nothing take away from my dream. Every single day, man, I've got to have a positive mind frame, even though it feels like, wow, man, why me? But every day I drive to make this be a positive thing as far as being a world champion, I'm going to be dedicated to that. I know it's going to happen. I fell off by doing something stupid, and now this is a positive thing because I'm glad I went through the situation and got to see everybody for who they are and who they were to me. He's his own fluff piece.

He's his own fluff piece. He's his own fluff piece. He will. He is. This is amazing. Fighting again March 5th, 2011 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. That sounds nice. Nice. He fights. Oh, I've seen that place. It's beautiful.

Yeah, it's really nice. I've seen it too. It's where the hockey plays. Yeah, it's right by the fucking. It's right by Disney. Yeah, you see it. He fights Ashanti Gibbs, non-linker, career 10 and 5 fighter. He knocks him out in 34 seconds in the first round.

He's just caged heat coming out of there, man. Fights again two weeks later, March 18th, at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, California. Fights John Berrio, non-linker, 15-4 guy. One minute, two seconds, a round two is a knockout. Jesus. He's 27-0 at this point. That's what I was just about to say. He hasn't lost is a knockout. Jesus. He's 27 and oh, at this point. That's what I was just about to say. He hasn't lost a fucking fight yet.

No, he's doing amazing. The only fights he's lost is with the law. That's right. In their own words here, quote, I give all honors and glory to God right now for giving me this opportunity and being able to talk to you all and, and, and get not a second chance, but more like a third chance. As far as my criminal background. No longer is that ever going to be a problem again because I'm not going to let it take any further action in my life anymore.

I'm good now. I am good now. He should have ended it with that. He should have. I'm good now. Yeah. That's perfect. From a fucking mountain top.

He's on top of the world. April 9, 2011, he fights at the MGM Grand Nobuhiro Ashida, a Japanese fella who was 27, 11, and 2. Not known as a powerful puncher. No. He only has seven knockouts in those 27. And this is supposed to be a cakewalk. Yeah. This is supposed to be a cakewalk for James. He's supposed to go in, knock this Japanese guy out, beat the rice out of him, and fucking go somewhere

else. Instead, James is... I'm sorry. James is... James Chinese, he played joke. Sorry, I couldn't... I wasn't even intentional. Knock the

rice out of him. You caught me by surprise. That was like a nice little right hook. I was sitting here listening to you and then all of a sudden that shit knocked the rice out of this poor guy. This Ashita knocks James down

three times and the fight ends in a TKO. What? One minute, 52 seconds into round one with James losing. Whoa. They call the fucking fight. What the fuck? He loses to, not happy he is right now, 27 and one.

After the loss. Yoshito peed in his coke. He peed right in his, he played joke. He definitely did. After the loss, he immediately fires Kenny Adams, his trainer, and reunites with Ann Wolf. Yeah, he tucked tail and ran back. I like this. His next fight, June 24, 2011, Dr. Pepper Arena in Texas, obviously.

He fights Dennis Sharp. It's Texas, Dr. Pepper. Fights Dennis Sharp, 17-24-4. Not exactly burning it up there. Beats him in 2-18 in round one with a knockout, 28-1. He fights non-linkers again for the next couple at Mandalay Bay as a second-round knockout. Now he has his aggression back, though. He's getting up.

He wants to fight some Chinamen. He wants to fight anybody. He's got that wolf aggression in him now. He fights in Cancun on November 5, 2011 against Alfredo Angulo, a 24-6 fighter. This is for the WBC Continental America's Light Middleweight title. That's a title. Yeah, it's not much of a title, but it's a long one. He wins a TKO in round six.

Goes to 30-1. Fights in March 24, 2012. He beats Carlos Molina in a controversial fight. This fight goes 10 rounds. Molina's a good fighter. He's a 27-6-2. James wins by disqualification. Whoa.

When Molina's corner entered the ring too soon in the 10th round. A lot of people thought Kirkland lost the fight. Oh. And they disqualify Molina's corner entered the ring too soon in the 10th round. A lot of people thought Kirkland lost the fight, and they disqualify Molina. So that was always thought of as shady, and a lot of people are pissed off at that. Now, in this fight, he injures his shoulder. Also, he undergoes surgery a week later for the injured shoulder, and now he starts to get wacky. Uh-oh. Okay. The drugs.

He starts talking shit. Goddamn medical system. Starts talking shit about the Golden Boy promotions, which he shouldn't because they've been helping him. He says, quote, in their own words, quote, When I fought Molina, I was offered two pills, two black pills before the fight. I take them thinking my team had my best interests at heart. As soon as I took those pills, I felt like I was high as a kite. My timing was off.

My equilibrium was off. Then I messed up my arm. Did he take black tar heroin pills? He just said his team drugged him to lose a fight. My timing was off. My equilibrium was off. Then I messed up my arm. Did he take Blacktar heroin pills? He just said his team drugged him to lose a fight. That's not good. Which doesn't seem right, and it's also a little crazy. He starts doing all sorts of things to fire his entire team, including Wolf again now, which is crazy. He agrees to a fight with Canelo Alvarez at this point for under a million dollars.

Million dollars for this guy. That's a big deal. Then he says he's not going to do it. He changes his mind, has his friend Curtis Meeks, who's a half-assed 9-2 career boxer, whose career ended because he went to jail for manslaughter. Perfect. Perfect. He had him send an email to his management team saying that Kirkland wouldn't fight for

anything less than $2.5 million. That's not an email you sent. You just fight for what you get. He's just trying to get them to drop him at this point. He said $1 million wasn't enough. He's just trying to be difficult. I'm on board. He then sends a letter to Wolf, to Duncan, to Miller, and to Pops Billingsley even saying

that he's severing ties with all of them. Pops has had strokes and shit. Pops took him out of a homeless shelter when he was six. Pops should be your hero forever. Unbelievable. Miller files a suit asking a judge to validate their contract, saying you can't break it. That ends up, the judge does agree with that,

and he has to keep Miller. Kirkland also files a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles against Golden Boy Promotions seeking to get out of that contract. Holy shit. Unbelievable. So a lot of shit is swirling around. His head isn't right. And on June 15, 2013, in Austin, Texas, there's an incident between him and his girlfriend of two years, Frances Campbell.

They were hanging out with friends and drinking at a club. Campbell became angry with James because he was checking out another woman who happened to be the mother of his child. Vanessa was in there checking her out at the nightclub. Campbell felt disrespected, took Kirkland outside, and the two of them argued. You know, the typical... You still want to fuck her? Shut up.

I did several times. I have children to prove it. They exchanged words. They left in a car to leave. During the car ride, they argued again. And Campbell tells police at this point that Kirkland grabbed her by the throat. She was driving, so you're choking a driver, which is not smart. That's scary. She pulled over into a parking lot of a CVS pharmacy, and then the physical thing continued.

She said Kirkland grabbed her by the throat again. Campbell says she apologized to try to get him to calm down. Once the argument finished, they went home. Campbell says she ran upstairs, fearing further violence. She called the police. Police came in. They were told by Campbell that Kirkland caused her injuries, didn't strangle her hard enough

to cut off the path of air, but grabbed her by the throat. They found a five to six inch scratch on the front of her neck and fingernail prints on the back left and right, like he got wrapped around her. He's arrested on two counts of assault, causing bodily injury and family violence. And he's held on $5,000 bail. Shit.

Yeah. So at this point, he's ruined it all. He's fucking shit on pops. He's embarrassed at Delahoya. He's robbed a poor dollar store owner. He's got two kids, three kids who aren't seeing him very much he's firing and walking that he's firing and wolf who had lived under a goddamn boat feel bad for all these people jimmy i feel bad for all these people but not nearly as bad as i feel

for james kirkland university of illinois football recruiting analyst oh shit he also worked for the titans and browns james kirkland production engineer for panasonic at tesla gigafactory one in reno nevada uh james kirkland pastor of discipleship and outreach in lansing michigan at the first baptist church we feel bad for a baptist preacher oh he's not this guy and finally senior regional director of sales and marketing at peach tree hotel group in austin texas because he's in austin so that's the worst there's peaches everywhere down there as we have found out everything's fucking peach everything is so anyway uh he breaks his contract with golden boy yeah uh and so he breaks all that he still has the managerial agreement with miller and who decides

to sign him to promote him who 50 cent oh jesus get out of here decides he wants to get into boxing so 50 cent signs him so now he's really somebody who's been to prison we need someone who's been to prison more than me to promote me yeah i can do that uh he fights glenn tapia in december of 2013 in atlantic city and glenn tapia was an up-and-comer he hadn't lost at this point he's 23 and 4 active uh 23-4 career. He's still active. He lost his last three fights. Uh-oh. So, you know, not great.

James knocks him out in the sixth round. Wow. He goes to 32-1. 50 Cent is thrilled. Yeah. He's thinking things are great. He's talking through that mumble mouth of his. Oh, absolutely.

Shit's coming off. Miller has fights set up for him that were already set up. Yeah. And he's backing out of his. Oh, absolutely. It's coming off. Miller has fights set up for him that were already set up, and he's like he's backing out of them, and he's burning bridges, is what Miller says. This is paydays. Just fucking run with them. Miller says, quote, he's unpredictable. It's frustrating because he's burning bridges. As much as I like him and as much as I want the best for him,

there are entities that are going to stop giving him these great opportunities if he continues to slam the door in their face. That's the truth. He's not wrong. And it's true. If you're being a jerk off, stop. You know what I mean? May 9th, 2015, he fights Canelo Alvarez.

He does fight him. This is the big boy here. This is the big fight at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Alvarez is 49-1-1. His only loss is to Floyd Mayweather. Holy shit. And his draw was in his fifth fight in a four-round fight. He was barely a boxer. Yeah, it's barely a boxing match of four rounds he has only lost to

mayweather who's got the best hands in the world so he's gonna crush conor mcgregor by the way it's gonna be just you know my ufc and conor's a fucking dead man uh so james is ko'd in the third round here of course This fight is a war. Really? He's not afraid of it all. For three rounds? Kirkland is not afraid of it. It's 20 rounds of punches in three rounds.

It's so many punches. KO'd in the third round. Fights valiantly. 32-2. And they also see this is some shit. People want to watch him fight people. Again, it's good for that anyway. Yeah, Alvarez, though, he was just too good of a fighter for me.

He's a great fighter. He's very strong and everything else. Alvarez said, quote, I'm happy about the win. It was the result I expected. James is a strong fighter, but he did surprise me with his aggressiveness in the first and second rounds. But once I dropped him the first time, I knew I had him. So he's like, it's all good. You know what I mean?

So now he lost, and 50 Cent said, I'm very proud of him. He fought like a true warrior, but I'm sending him back to Ann Wolfe. Oh, is that right? I want Ann Wolfe to train him. He said that? Yeah. I'm sending him back to Ann Wolfe. I'm sending him back to Ann Wolfe.

He needs that killer instinct. James made $1.3 million for that fight. My God. So he's got some cash in his pocket. He doesn't have to do shit anymore. No. He's got cash. His career record's 32 and 2 with 28 knockouts. Yeah. $1.3 million in his pocket. You don't have to do shit anymore. No, he's got cash. His career record's 32 and 2 with 28 knockouts.

Yeah. $1.3 million in his pocket. You don't have to rob people anymore. No. And on August 8, 2016, he's arrested for nonpayment of fucking child support. You stupid asshole. What the fuck? For the first fucking time, you have money in your entire fucking life.

And now you're choosing not to pay for your fucking kids? Jesus Christ. Dickhead. Jesus Christ. He bails himself out of jail he's got bail money 15 160 dollars and 25 cents worth of bail money and how much was back child support couldn't be that much i i don't know but fucking ridiculous man he's what a complete idiot i mean he was sitting in jail how dumb must he's felt sitting in fucking jail with a million dollars in the bank.

Looking at himself in the mirror going, over child support, really? And there's a fucking knock at the door. He's like, who is this? And he opens the door and it's the Mexican pimp. And he's there with the guns blazing. And he says. How is it you've come to arrive here? Why are you here?

Why do you come? Why? You have a million dollars in your pocket. Do you know how many pesos a million dollars is? It is so many pesos. It is ten trillion pesos. You could pay for many children. You cannot even pay for one.

Why? Why are you so stupid? Why? Do you need gun? I understand. I have two. I carry. I understand. But you are not smart. You use ID. Too many punches to the head.

Poof. And a cloud of smoke. He's gone. He's out of there. He's very confused and he bells himself out. Now, he also is going to hook up with Ann Wolfe to fight again. He has a fight scheduled February 25th, 2017 to face El Codo. Really?

Yes, he's going to fight that. February was scheduled this year, February 25th of this year. And he hooks back up with Ann Wolfe, who Ann Wolfe, he had to wait a little bit for her because you know what she was doing for five months? Was she in prison? Fuck no. What was she doing? She was off filming Wonder Woman because she plays Artemis in the new Wonder Woman movie.

That's amazing. Fuck yeah, Ann Wolf. That is amazing. Living under a boat to a fucking movie star. Now she's a fucking movie star. That's right, God damn it. I love Ann Wolf. That's an empowerment of women movie.

That's incredible. I love it. Good for you, Ann Wolf. She plays Artemis in that movie? She plays Artemis in that. He wants to fight Kodo. Each of them, their last fight was a loss to Canelo Alvarez. All right? She plays Artemis in that. He wants to fight Cotto. Each of them, their last fight was a loss to Canelo Alvarez. All right.

So they want to do that. February 2nd, 2017, we're talking about the fights in three weeks. Yeah. And they announced that the fight has been called off. Kirkland's team announced that he suffered an injury in sparring, which will force him to withdraw. It's a fractured nose. The entire pay-per-view show has been canceled. Wow.

They returned all your money. If you purchase tickets through Ticketmaster, you can get your money back. Boom. Wow. Done. That is him. If you can't get enough of him, you can go to champsuk.com or champsuck, whatever. Champsuk.com.

Champsuk.com or Champsuck, whatever. Champsuk.com. There's a Devon Alexander Southpaw mitt. Yeah, the boxing mitt. The focus gloves. Focus gloves. Focus gloves. That's it. What is the word I'm looking for?

Signed by James Kirkland. All right. And those are 85 pounds. Oh, how much do you want to do that? So about 100-something dollars. I was going to say, our shit's worth less than theirs now. Oh, yeah. Big time. A lot less.

That's James Kirkland in a fucked up, crazy ass story. My God. Holy shit. What a goddamn mess. Fuck. What a turd he is. Yeah. He's an asshole.

That's what I mean. Yeah. For a while, you root for him and you like him and then you're like, can you pay your fucking child support with a million dollars? Just pay for your kids, you idiot. All right. We're running long. So if you like that, please get on iTunes.

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Email is crimeandsports at gmail.com. Who are some fine, fine-ass people that did that this week, Jimmy? Amazing people that donated this week are Kellen Englert, Kristen Keene, John Burford. Burford? Burford. Jesus, that's a tough last name, John. That is tough. Monica Robertson, Will Jacobs, Eric Penuel, Joshua Hoffman, Graham McColgan, Stina Gardner, Cammie Payne, Zach Gallagher,

Lindsay McIntyre, Laura Murr, and then Melissa Martin got her husband listening, and he listens to us while making her dinner while she emails us to tell us the whole story. So thank you all for donating. Thank you all for contributing. Thank you all for participating. She did it like a real Ann Wolf. Like a real fucking Ann Wolf. A real Ann Wolf. Damn right. I'm going to use that as a badass now. Man, that motherfucker a real Ann Wolf. Like a real fucking Ann Wolf. Damn right.

I'm going to use that as a badass now. Man, that motherfucker's an Ann Wolf. He's bad. You can find me at Wisman Sucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. And I will be at the Tempe Improv June 23rd and 24th

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