Kirk Johnson: an underrated HW that should've won a belt

Krispy Kreme ko'd him. He'd be a viable Wilder opponent tho

 

For Wilder's camp. He fits the bill. He can't he and bigger than Nichols

 

He was a legit top 5 hw at his peak. Ruiz got a steal against him, Johnson was winning the fight minus the bogus point deductions and corrupt dq.

 

Ruiz also had some of the most inflated scores of any hw champ I can think of. Ruiz McCline isn't exactly a classic, but if you can stand watching it, its basically a 50/50 fight, and Ruiz won a wide UD.

 

Yeah he was good. of course in the 90's golden Era he was lost in the shuffle.
Even fringe contenders were dangerous then.

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You've got it dead right. Kirk won the WBA crown that night against Ruiz but as you said the tag team of Ruiz & Cortez made sure he didn't. That was blatant robbery. Ruiz acting & Cortez corruption really ruined Kirks career. He was in great shape for that fight & getting robbed the way he was was enough to get him to give up. Whether his injury before the proposed Lewis fight was 100% or not but when he went in against Vitali he was just there for the paycheck. He was way overweight & undertrained. It was so sad to see him go out like that because in the shape he was in for Ruiz he'd have given Vitali all he wanted & more. Kirk was a real nice guy too he deserved betteratsch

 

The Maskaev fight made Kirk. At the time Maskaev was expected to be a champion.

Kirk was losing the fight, and had his eyes closed when he landed the finisher. It later turned out that Maskaev wasn't what we thought.

He had some talent, Johnson, though. You look at someone like Fury, who has 10% of the talent, but does have size and "bottom" as Egan would have it, and is therefore 10x the fighter, and you realize why they have to fight the fights rather than listen to us discuss them.

 

Kirk actually had very good skills but had no heart and didn't give a chit once he had some cash.

He would come in up to like 250 at times, looked like he never had a training camp. Once he got ko'd, it was over for him at the true contender level. He kind of reminded me, just thinking back now, like a little bigger chambers always fighting at hw.

If you check out the condition he came in for ruiz and wlad you'd lose a ton of respect for him. If you really have any

 

He was a decent fighter. Too bad he showed up 30 pounds overweight in an embarrassing performance against Klitschko.

 

"The whale has been harpooned."

 

Ruiz was Puelto Lican.