James Kirkland delivered his best performance in his biggest fight, stopping Joel Julio when Julio quit on his stool after the sixth round. Julio landed a few solid punches, but was generally unable to deal with Kirkland’s aggression and volume.

The fight started with Kirkland pushing the action, forcing his way inside on Julio and smothering Julio’s ability to throw punches. Any time they created separation, Julio was able to sneak his right hand in on Kirkland, but no sooner did it land that Kirkland seemed to be back on top of him.

By the end of the third round, Julio was cut over his right eye and getting more and more tired. Kirkland continued to smother everything Julio did, physically break him down. By the fifth and sixth rounds, Julio’s offensive attempts were few and far between, as Kirkland was the only one coming forward and he really brought the fight to Julio.

After the sixth round, Julio appeared to tell the referee that he’d had enough and without hesitation, the bout was stopped.

Kirkland improves to 25-0, with 22 KOs, while Julio falls to 34-3 with 31 KOs.

In the undercard to the main event, Victor Ortiz was once again absolutely dominant, stopping Mike Arnauotis in the second round. At just 22-years old, Ortiz outclassed the veteran from the opening bell, landing a brutal left hand midway through the second round that sent Arnauotis back into the corner. Ortiz jumped all over him to force the referee to jump in and stop the action at the 1:27 mark of the second. Ortiz improves to 24-1-1, with 19 KOs with the win, while Arnauotis falls to 21-3-1 with 10 KOs in defeat.

In the first fight of the HBO telecast, Robert Guerrero and Daud Yordan battled for two rounds before an accidental headbutt caused a cut over Guerrero’s eye. Upon the advice from the doctor, and Guerrero’s admission that he couldn’t see out of the eye, the referee stopped the fight, making it a no-contest.