By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (36-3-1, 11 KO’s) will be fighting against a still to be determined opponent on June 27th at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow, Scotland. Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn is reportedly set to announce his opponent on Wednesday. There’s no word about who that fighter might be, but the chances are pretty high that it’ll be a domestic level guy like Anthony Crolla or someone of that level.
Burns, #5 WBO, lost his WBO lightweight title in his last fight against Terence Crawford last March in losing a 12 round decision. Burns losing his WBO title was long overdo because he’d been forced to go life and death with Jose Gonzalez last year in May before pulling out a 9th round injury stoppage. In Burns’ next fight after that, he was given a controversial 12 round draw against Raymundo Beltran last September in a fight where Burns fought well enough to win 1 round. It was one of the most one-sided fights I’ve seen from a champion, and that’s why it was so embarrassingly sad that the judges made a mess of the fight in giving Burns a draw.
I still haven’t seen anyone that agreed that the fight should have been a draw, as most boxing fans believe that Beltran was royally robbed in that fight, which took place in Glasgow. As such, it was no surprise when Crawford did a number on Burns in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision last March. The only thing I can say about that fight is that the scores – 116-112, 117-111, and 116-112 – were way too close. Burns appeared to win 1 round again, yet two of the judges scored it as a close fight. Believe me, it wasn’t. Crawford dominated Burns from start to finish, and the one round I gave Burns was more of a mercy round than anything.
There’s some boxing fans who think Burns is a shot fighter, and that he’s not the same guy he once was. I see it more of a case of the competition having caught up to Burns and surpassed him than a case of him being a shot fighter. He looks the same to me. A fighter doesn’t look it overnight the way that Burns did. You have to remember that the guys that Burns was beating at super featherweight and at lightweight left a heck of a lot to be desired. Burns never fought Adrien Broner when he had the chance to on two occasions, and the guys that he did beat were very average.
Here are the fighters that Burns has beaten since 2010:
Jose Gonzalez
Kevin Mitchell
Paulus Moses
Michael Katsidis
Nicky Cook
Joseph Laryea
Andreas Evensen
Roman Martinez
Youssef Al Hamidi
None of those guys are in the league of fighters like Beltran, Broner, Crawford, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Miguel Vazquez, and Richard Abril.
Comments are closed.