By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2-1, 11 KO’s) barely held onto his title in his last fight against challenger Raymundo Beltran. The judges scored the fight a 12 round draw, but boxing fans think Burns lost that fight by a clear decision.
Whatever the case, Burns will now be defending his title in less than 2 months against the talented undefeated American Terence Crawford (22-0, 16 KO’s) on March 1st at the Scottish Exhibition Centre, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Burns has been bragging lately about having some new secret strategy that they’re going to use on Crawford to try and beat him. I can only imagine what that strategy is.
“A lot of people are writing me off, and that he’s [Crawford] coming over and he’s going to knock me out,” Burns said to IFL TV. “We have made a few adjustments in how we prepare. We’ve changed the training regimen, and you’ll see the benefits come fight night. I know it’s going to be a tough fight, but I’m going to be prepared for whatever happens. I think the Crawford fight is going to be a much tougher fight than the rematch [with Beltran] if it happens. I’ve seen him fight a couple of times, and I knew the WBO was going to push for him to be my mandatory. I knew the fight was going to happen, but it’s a fight I’m looking forward to.”
In the same interview, Burns unknowingly gave away his fight strategy for the Crawford fight when he spoke about Adrien Broner’s recent loss to Marcos Maidana. Burns noted that Maidana pressured Broner constantly in the first half of the fight, and got right on top of him to beat him up and wear him down.
Burns then said that was going to be his own plan in how to fight Broner if the two of them had fought. Unfortunately, they didn’t fight because Burns twice turned down fights with Broner. But it’s interesting that Burns spoke of wanting to fight Broner the same way that Maidana did, because that basically tells you that Burns is going to try and use that same strategy to attempt to beat Crawford on March 1st.
It kind of makes sense, because Burns did that in his fight with Jose Gonzalez last year to beat him in May of 2013 after Gonzalez had totally dominated him in the first 7 rounds of the fight. Burns got in his face and went toe-to-toe with Gonzalez until he suffered an injured wrist that caused the fight to be halted at the start of the 9th.
I really don’t think pressure will work for Burns in him trying to beat Crawford, but it is really the only thing Burns can go in this fight to try and win. If he stands back and tried to fight him at a distance, then Crawford will easily beat him by picking him off with shots. If Burns tries to run like he did in the Beltran fight, Crawford will speak him with shots from the outside. The only thing Burns can do is bum rush Crawford and hope he can beat him at close quarters in an ugly, ugly fight.
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