Ricky Burns vs. Miguel Vazquez fight called off!!!

By Boxing News - 03/03/2013 - Comments

burns7By Scott Gilfoid: The March 16th unification bout between WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) and IBF champion Miguel Vazquez (33-3, 13 KO’s) has been called off. According to the Scottishsun.co.uk, Burns was told last Saturday night about the fight being cancelled.

There’s a possibility that it could be rescheduled in the next 30 days. There isn’t a stated reason for why the fight has been called off, but we recently heard news that Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves had left Frank Warren, the promoter of the March 16th event, and is signing with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport.

Losing Groves was definitely a huge blow to the card, which is headlined by a less than thrilling fight between WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly and Robin Krasniqi.

There has been talk about Vazquez not being satisfied with the contract, and recently said the contract still wasn’t finalized during the past two weeks. We later saw photos of Vazquez holding a form that looked to be an agreement for the Burns fight, but who knows if that the contract that needed to be signed for the fight to be a done deal.

This is some crushing news for Burns, who has already had a couple of recent fights fall apart against Jose Ocampo and Liam Walsh.

The good news is that with Vazquez out of the way, Burns and his promoter Warren can look to put a fight together with WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner, who will be fighting on June 15th in Las Vegas, Nevada and needs an opponent. Golden Boy Promotions want to get Burns to agree to face Broner on that date if possible.

The smart thing would be for Burns’ team to try and put a fight together with Broner, but one gets the sense that they won’t do this because they’ve had the chance to put Burns in with Broner twice already and both times they decided not to. I can’t see anything being different this time because Broner is just as likely to KO Burns now then he would have before.

I’d be very surprised if the Burns-Vazquez negotiations are restarted for this fight. It’s a bad match-up for Burns, and he would have likely been beaten or if he did win the chances are he would have looked terrible.



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