When junior middleweight banger James Kirkland goes into his showdown with former titleholder Canelo Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) on May 9 (HBO, 9 p.m. ET/PT) at Minute Maid Park in Houston, he will do so without one of his greatest assets: trainer Ann Wolfe.
Instead, Kirkland left Wolfe and is being trained by heretofore unknown Gerald Tucker, who had a good amateur career and six pro fights in 2000-01 and has never trained anyone of note.
Wolfe’s style of training isn’t for everyone. She is a taskmaster of the highest order and trained Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) in such a physical, grinding way that in many ways camp was tougher than the fights. But the success they had together cannot be overlooked.
The one loss of Kirkland’s career came without her in the corner because of another split. Kirkland was not in top shape when light-hitting Nobuhiro Ishida blew him out in one round in 2011. Kirkland reunited with Wolfe after that loss and has won five fights in a row, including his last fight in December 2013 when he knocked out Glen Tapia in the sixth round of a slugfest.
“As of now, James is not training with Ann in Austin. He is training in San Antonio with Gerald Tucker. I have never heard of him training pro fighters,” Kirkland manager Michael Miller told ESPN.com. “But I make it a rule not to insist on who they train with. If I get asked I will give my opinion, but I don’t want to be blamed if I was to insist on a trainer and something goes wrong. You don’t push a marriage on anyone. We don’t have arranged marriages in this country.”
But Miller, while he won’t come out and say it, certainly sounds like a guy who wants Wolfe training Kirkland.
“I think the evidence is there and the facts speak for themselves,” he said of their success together. “But I also understand he wants to make his own decisions. You have to stand by him and hope his decisions are right. He is doing everything he is being asked to do in the gym. But we know the only loss was when he wasn’t with Ann. I’m not going to get in the way of him making adult decisions.
“You live by your choices. This is his career. It’s his life. It’s his biggest fight and this is when you typically want to have the team behind you who brought you there. But I won’t judge.”
While Miller said he understood that Kirkland wanted to make his own choice with regard to a trainer, he was perplexed that he would part ways with Wolfe in favor of somebody inexperienced in a big fight.
“If you’re not going to train with Ann at least train with someone who has experience,” Miller said. “If you’re going to change trainers, train with someone who has trained top fighters. But I tend not to get into that stuff. I haven’t asked him why he isn’t training with Ann, but she’s puzzled too.”