Ricky Burns Celtic Warrior

By Boxing News - 05/12/2013 - Comments

burns534By Hugh Janus: Congratulations to Ricky Burns for an outstanding performance in defence of his World Title. A true Celtic warrior, he came through fire for the most decisive win of his career against an evidently more talented boxer. His World Champion credentials are beyond question.

Gonzalez showed pure class from the first bell, dominating the first half of the fight with ease. Early signs suggested the fight would end in a very lop sided decision if Burns could even make it that far. I had certainly written him off going into the 7th.

However, as Burns beautifully illustrated on Saturday night, winning and successfully defending a title strap does not always mean being the most talented boxer in the fight. There are many other qualities that make a champion.

Gonzalez for all his skill, accuracy, poise & ring generalship was simply not up to the job of taking Ricky’s belt away. He showed a lack of experience by gambling all of his energy in the 7th round and failing to finish the job against a very resilient Burns.

I understand that Gonzalez claims a wrist injury forced retirement, but that does Burns an incredible injustice. The claim is obviously spurious: he had nothing left after the 7th round war, just a greatly diminished work rate and far less authority in his punches. Watching his gloves being removed in the ring, there was no discernible twinge of pain when his wrist was twisted to get hid gloves off.

What Burns lacked in talent against Gonzalez he made up for in spades with those other qualities. Ricky’s pure determination to find a way though was outstanding, and the 7th round was easily the best I’ve seen this year. Let’s not remember this fight as a retirement through injury, nor disrespect Gonzalez by calling him a quitter. Ricky Burns is still champion because he wanted it more when the fight got tough.

As for a rematch, I think Hearn’s correct to avoid it for now. Gonzalez is evidently a better boxer than Burns, but his loss was fair. Gonzalez will more than likely be a champ soon enough, so save the rematch for a unification bout. It will be massive!



Comments are closed.