Ricky Burns to fight in late June, says Hearn

By Boxing News - 03/15/2014 - Comments

burns2By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (36-3-1, 11 KO’s) will be back in the ring fighting in late June, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn. He doesn’t say who Burns will be facing but I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see him fighting someone from the UK rather than him being tested by a top contender from elsewhere.

Burns, 30, is badly in need of a confidence booster after his one-sided defeat at the hands of previous No.1 WBO contender Terence Crawford two weeks ago on March 1st in Glasgow, Scotland. Crawford whipped Burns in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-112, 117-111, 116-112. The scores were far too close, as Burns fought well enough to win maybe 1 round at best, but I figured that Burns would get at least 4 rounds in the bag simply for being the home fighter, and it would be up to Crawford to make up the difference by fighting tooth and nail.

That’s exactly what happened. Crawford fought a beautiful fight in countering everything that Burns was throwing, and then going on the offense once Burns became timid about throwing anything.

In response to a question of when Burns will be fighting next, Hearn said on his twitter “End of June – announcement soon!”

It’s possible that Burns could look to angle himself to get a title shot against IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez. For some reason, Vazquez is the guy that always gets targeted instead of WBA champion Richard Abril. That tells me that they see Vazquez as being vulnerable because I see them going in the path of least resistance rather than taking on a tough opponent and having Burns suffer another loss.

As it is, Burns really should have two straight losses from his fights against Raymundo Beltran and Crawford. Burns fought well enough to lose his fight against Beltran last year by a lopsided 12 round decision, but instead he got a 12 round draw out of it. I had Burns winning 1-2 rounds, and there was no way I could give him any rounds from the 3rd round on after he suffered a broken jaw. He was on the defense after the 2nd and just trying to survive rather than win.

Burns likely won’t take on anyone good in his June fight. It’s going to be strictly a tune-up type fight in order to get the cobwebs out. Once he has a tune-up or two, then I see Hearn setting him up for another world title shot. He’s obviously not going to wait too long before putting Burns back into a title situation because he’s getting up there in age and it’s unclear whether tune-ups and confidence boosters will help him at this point. Indeed, you can probably give Burns 1000 tune-ups, and the outcome will always be the same each time he faces Crawford. We’re talking about a talent difference. Maybe if Burns was a little younger, he might win a round or two more, but that’s still a big maybe because even in the prime of his career, he barely beat Roman Martinez.



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