By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion not surprisingly decided to leave his promoter Frank Warren this week after having two fights drop out from under him and third fight ending up postponed. Burn still hasn’t indicated where he’ll be moving to for his next promotion, but more than a few boxing fans see him choosing to work with Eddie Hearn at Matchroom Sport.
Hearn has been like a giant vacuum recently, sucking up some of the best British fighters to his stable while draining the other British’s promoter’s best fighters. What’s the allure with being with Hearn’s stable?
Hearn has an exclusive contract with Sky Sports which enables fighters from his stable to receive a ton attention by having their fights televised on Sky. That right there is reason enough for fighters, at least for the time being, to want to be with Hearn. That could change if Hearn loses that contract to another promoter.
Burns was supposed to be fighting a unification bout against IBF champion Miguel Vazquez on April 20th, but that fight is likely to be off. There’s talk that Burns’ next fight will be in Glasgow, and it’ll be a simple title defense rather than the dangerous unification bout that was planned against Vazquez. There’s pretty much no chance of Burns facing WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner any longer due to Broner possibly moving up to 147 to challenge WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi.
In addition to that, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer said this week that Burns’ manager had turned down the Broner fight for some reason despite the fact that the money that was being offered was two to three times more than what Burns would have received for the Vazquez unification bout.
With Broner moving up in weight, Burns won’t have anyone to increase his popularity and if he keeps fighting the guys that he’s been facing since he was given the WBO title, he’ll just stagnate. You’d like to see Burns facing WBA champion Richard Abril or Vazquez, but the chances of that happening are likely remote because those guys are really good and would likely beat him.
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