By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) is already hard at work trying to pump up interest in his December 15th fight against little known 2nd tier opponent Jose Ocampo (17-0, 12 KO’s) for their fight at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, London, United Kingdom.

Ocampo is yet another over-matched opponent for Burns, who is making a name for himself as someone that is badly underachieving in his title reigns at super featherweight and now lightweight in terms of match-ups.

But believe it or not, Burns sees the Ocampo fight as his toughest, saying in a press release “I’d say this is the hardest fight of my career against a young, hungry challenger.”

Hardest fight of Burns’ career? I would say that Burns is going a little overboard in trying to pump up his fight with Ocampo, but he might by telling the truth in this. I hate to say it but Ocampo might just be the best guy that Burns has fought, and that’s a pretty sad statement. We haven’t seen Burns step up and fight talents like Adrien Broner, Antonio DeMarco, Miguel Vazquez, Brandon Rios, Robert Guerrero, Juan Manuel Marquez, Jose Gonzalez, Sherif Bogere, Sergio Thompson, Richard Abril, Darley Perez, Jorge Linares, Hank Lundy, Marvin Quintero and Yuriorkis Gamboa.

We’ve not seen that at all. Instead, we’ve seen Burns fight Michael Katsidis, Paulus Moses and Kevin Mitchell. I’m sorry but those fighters, along with the Ocampo guy, don’t compare with the guys that I’ve listed above and those are the guys that Burns should have fought by now.

Ocampo’s resume looks rather poor to the say the least, and he’s not someone that I would have selected if I were a champion to fight. Don’t know why the WBO is letting the fight go ahead given that he’s not ranked in the top 15, but as a fighter I wouldn’t waste a title defense on a guy that few people have ever heard of. But I guess it’s better to take an easy fight then to take on someone tough like one of the guys I’ve mentioned and risk getting beaten. I can’t wait to hear who Burns will be fighting after the Ocampo fight. I know Adrien Broner’s name has been mentioned but I don’t see that happening ever. No way. I think it makes for a good sound bite to name drop the talented Broner’s name, but I don’t see Burns ever taking that fight.