By Scott Gilfoid: In what will likely prove to be an exercise in futility, Golden Boy promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has reportedly contacted the promoter for WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) to see if he can agree to match Burns up with WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) on June 15th in a unification bout at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Steve Kim.
All I can say about that is good luck, Schaefer. I can already hear the excuses flying for why Burns can’t take that fight, something along the lines of him needing more time to prepare than just three months or maybe he can’t the fight because he needs to move up to another weight class.
At any rate, it’s still premature at this point because Burns has a fight scheduled this month against IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez (33-3, 13 KO’s) on March 16th at the Wembley Arena, in London, United Kingdom. I’m expecting Burns to either lose that fight or win it by the mother of all controversial decisions that will create such a stink that it’ll scare Golden Boy Promotions and Broner of the scent of wanting to ever fight Burns.
Even under the best scenario with Burns totally schooling Vazquez for 12 rounds in winning an impressive decisions, I don’t see Burns and his promoter saying yes to a fight against Broner because there’s really no chance of Burns winning that fight. Burns isn’t going to take that fight when he can continue to milk his WBO strap against mediocre opposition over and over again in the UK. You put Burns in with Broner, and his days of milking that WBO title are over. Burns would have to start from scratch as just a plain contender fighting for lesser money than what he’s been receiving.
My advice for Schaefer and Broner is to forget all about fighting Burns because they already tried twice and failed to get a fight with him. They’ve got to have some dignity and quit hounding for that fight because it’s just not going to happen. There’s no interest there from Burns’ side. I mean, if there was don’t you think he would have gladly signed for the fight? Look how quickly Burns signed to fight easy opponents like Kevin Mitchell. It’s not hard to get a fight with Burns when he wants to fight you, but he clearly doesn’t fancy a fight with Broner and I don’t blame him because he’d get royally spanked.
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