(As you can see by the photo, there’s a slight size disparity between Ricky Burns and his opponent Dejan Zlaticanin) By Scott Gilfoid: Ricky Burns (36-3-1, 11 KO’s) and his little known fringe contender opponent Dejan Zlaticanin (18-0, 13 KO’s) both made weight on Thursday for their WBC lightweight eliminator bout for Friday night at the Braehead Arena, in Glasgow, Scotland. #15 WBC Burns weighed in at a slender 134.75 pounds.
At 5’10”, Burns looked too thin for the weight. His opponent, #13 WBC Zlaticanin weighed in slightly less at 134, but looked very short. Indeed, Zlaticanin appears to be at least 4 inches shorter than Burns. It this good match-making?
This has got to be one of the oddest eliminator bouts I’ve ever seen before, because of how low ranked both fighters are. I mean, Burns is ranked #15 by the WBC, while Zlaticanin is ranked #13 WBC. In other words, both Burns and Zlaticanin are bottom dwellers in the WBC’s rankings, yet somehow their fight is a WBC eliminator bout.
How in the heck did the World Boxing Council let that happen? I can’t remember ever seeing a situation where both fighters were ranked at or near the bottom of the rankings and were fighting in an eliminator bout. It’s normally a situation where both guys are top 5 or one of them is top 5, while the other is within the top 10. But I’ve never ever seen a situation where one guy is ranked #15 and the other #13 fighting in an eliminator bout.
I wonder how the higher ranked WBC contenders feel about this, like #1 Daniel Estrada, #2 Jorge Linares, #3 Rustam Nugaev, #4 Takahiro Aoh, #5 Henry Lundy, #6 Kavier Prieto, #7 Nihito Arakawa, #8 Emiliano Marsili, #9 Ivan Redkach, #10 Ivano Cano, #11 Alejandro Luna, and #12 Marcelino Lopez.
“I am under no illusions that I have to perform and look good tomorrow night,” Burns said via Fightnews.com. “The last three fights have been tough and culminated in losing my world title belt, which was devastating of course. I am proud of my reign as a world champion and not being a world champion anymore hurts, so I want to get back there as soon as possible.”
For an eliminator bout, this sure is a weak one. If the WBC is going to pick Zlaticanin and Burns in an eliminator, they could have at least inserted someone like Linares into the mix to face one of them. Given that Zlaticanin is ranked higher than Burns, I would somehow stomach a fight between Linares and Zlaticanin, even though he still wouldn’t be ranked high enough for an eliminator.
Comments are closed.