By Scott Gilfoid: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he spoke to the president of the World Boxing Organization Francisco “Paco” Valcarcel to make sure that the best judges are working the March 1st fight between Arum’s fighter unbeaten #1 WBO Terence Crawford (22-0, 16 KO’s) and WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2-1, 11 KO’s) at the Scottish Exhibition Centre, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Arum doesn’t want any controversy like what we saw with Arum’s fighter Raymundo Beltran in his last fight with Burns in September of last year. Beltran totally dominated Burns in the fight, yet he had to settle for a 12 round draw. I had Burns winning all of one round in the fight, and even then the one round I gave him was a mercy round. I don’t even think he deserved to win one round of the fight. Burns was that bad. I know he had a broken jaw, and that was one of the reasons why he chose to hold and run for 12 rounds. But as a judge, you can’t give fighters like that a draw when they’re not even fighting. It was just so sad to watch. Beltran really got worked over with the poor judging in that fight.
“We have very high hopes of Crawford being a super star, but first he’s got to take care of Burns,” Arum said via Fightnews. “I look for him [Crawford] to win a decisive victory over Burns. I am concerned about that [a hometown decision]. I talked to Paco Valcarcel, the head of the WBO, and he assured me that there will be better judges for the Burns-Crawford fight.”
Let’s hope that there will be better judges than last time, because I could just see Crawford clowning Burns for 12 rounds, and then ending up either getting a loss or a draw out of it. If the judges wouldn’t give Beltran a victory with the way he totally dominated Burns, then I can see Crawford having problems too unless the WBO has a good judging crew with eyes open to what’s happening in the ring on March 1st.
I think Crawford has the talent to be another Mayweather if Top Rank develops him a little more. The only thing that separates Crawford from being another Mayweather type talent is his low work rate. If he doubles his work rate, he’ll be a star in no time. But he’s got to throw more shots, and put more power on them for him to get to be a Mayweather-type talent.
As for Burns, I see him getting badly beaten in this fight to where the judges won’t have much of a choice but to raise Crawford’s hand at the end of it. Burns will likely resort to holding like he did in the Beltran and Michael Katsidis fights, but I don’t think that’s going to help him on March 1st. The arm bars, clinching and the running won’t be able to help Burns beat a talent like Crawford. I see this fight going really badly for Burns. I just hope none of his fans start throwing things when the decision is announced. I’d hate to see Crawford get brained by some unhappy fan throwing a bottle in the ring after Crawford gets his hand raised in victory.
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