Burns defeats Katsidis by controversial decision

By Boxing News - 11/06/2011 - Comments

Image: Burns defeats Katsidis by controversial decisionBy Scott Gilfoid: In what we’ve become accustomed to seeing when visiting fighters travel to the UK to fight, poor Australian Michael Katsidis (28-5, 23 KO’s) found himself the latest victim of being on the receiving end of a controversial, some would say hometown decision against former WBO super featherweight champion Ricky Burns (33-2, 9 KO’s) at the Wembley Arena in London, England.

The judges’ scores were a complete joke with Burns winning by the scores 117-112, 117-111 and 117-111. I had Katsidis winning by a very comfortable margin by a 9 rounds to 3 margin. So disgusted was Katsidis with the scoring of the fight he walked out of the ring without giving an after-fight interview and I don’t blame him for a second. Katsidis deserved to get the win and he must feel terrible having out-worked Burns in basically every round of the fight only to find himself losing by a wide margin.

Sad, very sad. However, I knew it was going to be like this. I knew that the only way Katsidis could get the win was if he knocked Burns out, and I was right. I got a laugh at watching the fight on BoxNation. It was actually hilarious. Katsidis would completely dominate the rounds with Burns doing little more than clinching every chance he could get or using an arm bar to hold onto Katsidis to try and prevent him from throwing.

After the rounds, the BoxNation analysts, more often than not, would say ‘there goes another round for Burns.’ It was completely laughable. Burns was just laying on the ropes like an old man just trying to hold Katsidis to keep him punching. The most you could get out of Burns was jabs here and there and lefts to the body with an occasional rabbit punch thrown. Also some dirty pool like lacing Katsidis. But the arm bars and the clinching was excessive.

Burns just looked like he put on too much weight and he wasn’t able to throw a lot of punches because of it. My guess is Burns came into the fight weighing no less than 145 lbs. He looked huge compared to Katsidis. I’m not just talking about his height advantage. I’m taking about how much bigger Burns was than Katsidis. It looked like Katsidis was facing a slightly thick around the middle welterweight, albeit one without any power and a terrible work rate. Burns could barely throw punches without having to grab and rest. It’s nice that Burns put on weight so he can stop bellyaching about his problems trying to make super featherweight, but where’s the advantage when you can’t fight without needing to rest or lay on the ropes.

I’m sorry I thought Burns lost to Katsidis by a wide margin and I can’t see Burns doing anything in the lightweight division unless his promoter matches him up with soft touches for the next year. If Burns fights Robert Guerrero, Juan Manuel Marquez or Brandon Rios, he’ll get slaughtered. That’s reality and I know it hurts, but it’s reality. However, those fights won’t happen if it means that those guys have to go to the UK to fight Burns. Forget that. We just saw Katsidis get jobbed. You think those guys would want to have to go to the UK thinking they’ll have to KO Burns to win? I think they all could, but it’s kind of hard to knockout a guy that is clinching 24/7 and grabbing arms to prevent fighting.

I was really impressed with Katsidis tonight. He fought beautifully, throwing punches nonstop and landing at will against a Burns, who resembled a heavy punching bag. I think Burns needs to lose weight and go back to super featherweight, because his workrate tonight was terrible. The extra weight has really done a number on his ability to throw punches.



Comments are closed.