By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) won’t be fighting at all this Saturday night in London after his promoter Alex Morrison was unable to find a replacement opponent to fill in for Jose Ocampo, who pulled out of the Burns fight this week after the death of his trainer.
According to Sky Sports News, they attempted to get Derry Matthews to step in and take the fight on short notice but he didn’t take it.
Morrison told Sky Sports “We couldn’t find an opponent for him [Burns] to fight. He [Matthews] was offered a 10 round fight but decided not to take it. We’re now looking at January 26 for the next title defense and hopefully that will take place in Glasgow.”
What’s interesting about this is how Morrison fails to say anything about a potential unification bout with WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner on February 16th. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer was hoping to make the fight with Burns and Broner in a fight that would be televised by HBO, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, does it? Morrison is talking about a simple title defense for Burns in January and made no mention of a fight with Broner.
I can’t say I’m surprised that Burns appears to be going in another direction than a fight with Broner because I never expected Burns to take that fight with him. Burns moved up in weight last year when Broner was closing in on a fight with him after becoming the mandatory challenger. Some boxing fans think Burns ducked the Broner fight by moving up in weight and getting the benefit of being given the WBO lightweight strap soon after his arrival to the division. But I didn’t expect Burns to fight Broner because Broner is just too damn good and he’s not like the kind of guys that Burns has been fighting during his career.
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