By Scott Gilfoid: Well, I knew it would happen. WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) won’t be fighting WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) anytime soon, if ever. Burns’ promoter Alex Morrison says that Burns isn’t ready to take on a fighter like the talented 23-year-old Broner at this point.
Speaking with the Heraldscotland.com, Morrison said “We are not taking the fight. Ricky doesn’t have the necessary strong mindset at the moment to undertake such a big fight.”
Burns doesn’t have the strong mindset to fight Broner? Oh, this is worse than I originally thought. I mean, I had suspicions that there was some fear there but I didn’t expect Burns’ manager to come out and say it.
Apparently, the Broner-Burns fight could still made if Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for Broner, bump up their offer to Burns to £500,000, which comes out to $815,000 in U.S money.
I’m not sure what Burns has been making for his past fights as the World Boxing Organization lightweight and before that super featherweight champion, but I’d be willing to guess that it’s a heck of a lot less than £500,000. Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions said that his offer to Burns was for 2 to 3 times more than what Burns has been getting for his fights, and now we’re hearing that team Burns wants £500,000.
There’s a couple of ways to look at this. You can see it as a way for Burns to price himself out by asking too much money, and then having an excuse to come back and tell the boxing public by saying ‘they didn’t meet my asking price.’ The fallout would likely be a lot less if the public puts the blame on Broner for not paying what Burns wanted.
Team Burns could also be asking for big money for the fight against Broner because the chances are incredibly high that Burns is going to get smoked by Broner in royal fashion. At least by asking for a ton of good clean cash that Burns would get a good payday that would keep him living comfortably until Broner gets bored with the WBO lightweight strap and gives it up so that Burns can move back in and recapture if after he gets destroyed by Broner.
In another sign that Burns’ team doesn’t want the Broner fight, Morrison said “We are definitely not going to America [to fight Broner.”
In other words, if Broner wants the fight with Burns he’d have to come to the UK to fight him. Why would Broner, the more popular fighter, the guy that boxing fans see as the best fighter in the lightweight division, come to Scotland to fight Burns? That flips everything upside down if Broner were to do that. It’s supposed to be the less popular and weaker fighter that does the traveling, not the other way around. Oh, this is so, so sad.
I just knew this was going to happen as soon as they started talking Burns vs. Broner. Oh well, it’s a lesson learned. Broner can move on now and look to take some guys that actually want to fight him.
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