Ricky Burns: The long road back

By Boxing News - 03/04/2014 - Comments

burns7787By Stephen Davis: Let’s hope Ricky Burns has watched the rerun of his fight with Terence Crawford in losing his WBO title and has therefore rang Eddie Hearn and stated let’s forget about Crawford and world titles for awhile. Ricky’s stock at the moment must be at an all time low. His last three fights W1, D1, L1, have frankly been terrible. He has suffered a badly broken jaw, and now he has lost his world title. It’s a far cry from his 4 round demolition of Kevin Mitchell, where Ricky hit the heights and looked like he could do no wrong.

Burns’ name was mentioned for possible match ups against Adrien Broner and Miguel Vasquez. Apparently the Vasquez fight was a done deal with Frank Warren until Ricky jumped ship and moved to Eddie Hearn. In boxing your only has good as your last fight, so where does Ricky Burns go from here? In the Crawford fight he looked like he was protecting his jaw. It was Burns’ first fight back since badly breaking it against Raymundo Beltran in their fight last September.

So that now needs to be addressed. Yes, Ricky went 12 rounds with Crawford, but in protecting that jaw, it really stopped Burns from being an offensive fighter. Every time Crawford got near, Burns held a high guard and wouldn’t throw anything back. Burns also needs to rebuild his confidence, as he doesn’t look the same fighter as the one who beat Paulus Moses in March 2012.

Against Crawford his timing was way off. For the first three rounds, Burns’ jab looked okay, but after that it was mostly one way traffic with Crawford landing most of the shots. Burns seemed to loop his punches, missing Crawford’s head but sometimes catching him with a forearm. Former Scottish world champ Alex Arthur as stated that Burns needs to take some time off and I would agree. This is the long road back. Ricky must forget rematches with Crawford and Beltran, as these fights will surely bring about the end of Ricky’s career. The Rickster needs to take a long rest, up to a year out. Remember, he is only 30. Let the mind and jaw heal. Then go back in the gym, and work on the jab, because Ricky’s got a good jab. Burns needs to have two or three eight round fights against domestic fighters, make sure the jaw is right, and get over the fear factor in relation to that injury.

Then and only then once he knows 100 percent the jaws up to it, then rise the bar. Fight a ten rounder and rebuild his career. By doing this he can gauge what’s left in the tank and see if he still has what it takes. If so he can then thick about maybe the British title, which will then lead him back to world title contention. For Burns, this is the only way back, to jump straight back in against a top fighter will be the end of Burns as a credible fighter or even the end of his career. He needs to play it safe, and start again.



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