By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns’ next title defense is just a little over a week away against Terence Crawford on March 1st in Glasgow, Scotland. This is a fight that the odds are very high that Burns will lose in an embarrassing manner in front of his own fans.
The reason for that is because Crawford is a much better fighter than anyone that Burns has faced before during his career, and he’s also getting Burns at the right moment of his career. In his last two fights against Jose Gonzalez and Raymundo Beltran, Burns has showed serious signs of being a washed up fighter that is on his last legs.
Gonzalez dominated Burns until suffering a wrist injury and getting stopped. As for Beltran, he just flat out dominated Burns last September in Glasgow in that infamous fight in which Burns was given a gift 12 round draw. That was the fight were Burns pretty much went into a full survival mode after suffering a broken jaw in the 2nd round. Beltran dominated rounds 2 through 12, and fought well enough to win 11 of the 12 rounds of the fight.
With the way that Crawford has dominated Andrey Klimov, Alejandro Sanabria and Breidis Prescott in his last three fights, he’s shown that his talent is second to none in the lightweight division. Crawford didn’t just beat these guys, he punished them. Crawford was even able to make Prescott think twice about throwing his big power shots after the first 4 rounds. Yeah, Prescott landed some bombs in the first quarter of the fight, but once Crawford started nailing him with count shots, Prescott went into his shell and fought to survive rather than win the fight.
As I said, Burns looks to be on his last legs and is ready to be sent back into the regular ranks as just a plain old contender with the rest of the struggling fighters. The fact that Crawford is poised to be the one to beat Burns is the result of the World Boxing Organization ordering Burns to fight Crawford, his mandatory challenger next.
Burns and his promoter Eddie Hearn were hoping to face Beltran in a rematch next. Had they done that, it would have then given Burns a chance to get two cushy optional title defenses if he could have gotten a win or even another draw against Beltran. But the WBO went and spoiled things for Burns by ordering him to face Crawford next. Unless Burns fights out of his socks on March 1st, he should lose by a either a lopsided decision or a stoppage.
Burns will be turning 31 in April, and at that age you don’t get sudden bursts of talent that enable you to beat guys like Crawford. I mean, if Burns had the kind of ability to defeat Crawford, he would have shown it already and we’d know about it. But unfortunately, Burns’ last two fights against Beltran and Gonzalez has shown his ceiling as a fighter and he’s not going to be able to beat Crawford.
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