By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (36-4-1, 11 KOs) will be making his comeback on October 4th in Leeds against an opponent still to be determined, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn.
Burns, 31, suffered an elbow injury in his upset 12 round split decision loss in his last fight to fringe contender Dejan Zlaticanin last June. Burns had planned on fighting on September 13th in Manchester on the Scott Quigg card, but his elbow won’t be ready to go by then.
Burns has lost his last two fights and many boxing fans are starting to think he’s a shot fighter. He was beaten by Terence Crawford last March in losing a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight which he lost his WBO lightweight title. Before that fight, Burns was given a gift 12 round draw in a fight against Raymundo Beltran last year in September in Glasgow, Scotland.
Many people who saw that fight felt that Burns was soundly beaten by Beltran. The fight that started Burns’ problems was his grueling bout against the hard hitting Jose Gonzalez last year in May. Burns stopped Gonzalez in the 9th round, but he took all kinds of punishment from him and he was getting badly dominated until Gonzalez ran out of gas in the 9th.
Since that fight, Burns hasn’t looked like the same fighter. Burns has looked weak and unsure of himself in his last three fights since the Gonzalez bout. The question is did the Gonzalez fight take the heart of Burns and leave him an empty shell?
”Ricky Burns’ proposed comeback fight in Manchester on September 13 has been moved because of an elbow injury he picked up against Dejan Zlaticanin,” Hearn said to the Dailymail.co.uk. “He will now fight on October 4 in Leeds, on a bill including Josh Warrington and Callum Smith. Brian Rose will also make his comeback after his light-middleweight world title challenge in June.”
At this point I really don’t know what Hearn can do with Burns. He spoke of wanting to bring him back to the domestic level. Anthony Crolla, Kevin Mitchell and Derry Mathews are some of the names that have been rumored to be possible opponents for Burns’ next fight. Even those guys might be too much for Burns right now.
Brian Rose is coming off of a one-way beat down loss to WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade. Hearn thought Rose was going to beat Andrade, but instead he got a royal whipping in that fight. Rose failed to make any adjustments at all in the ring, and he appeared to be generally lost and confused.
It goes without saying that Rose was outclassed by Andrade, but what was troubling was the lack of any kind of plan-B from Rose. He stuck with his original game plan to try and box Andrade and he took a beating because of it.
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