By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (37-4, 11 KOs) will be moving back down to super featherweight, according to British fighter Derry Mathews.
Burns, 31, has struggled recently in losses to Terence Crawford and Dejan Zlaticanin. Both of those fights took place at lightweight, and it’s pretty clear that Burns doesn’t have the talent to compete against the top lightweights in the division. Before his loss to Crawford, Burns was given a gift 12 round draw against Raymundo Beltran last year in September.
This was a fight where Burns suffered a broken jaw in the 2nd round, and he fought totally defensively for the remaining 10 rounds of the fight. I gave Burns two mercy rounds, but really I thought he only won one round of the fight. The fact that there was one judge willing to give Burns the decision was very troubling.
While Burns was given the draw many fans in the boxing community see it as a straight up loss. Either way, the fight showed that Burns doesn’t have the talent to compete against Beltran, and if he can’t beat a guy like him then it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t have a place in the lightweight division if he wants to compete for another world title.
”Just read Ricky burns moving back down to super featherweight he be massive for it,” Derry Mathews said on his twitter today.
The problem with Burns moving back down to super featherweight is that he’s not fought at that weight since 2011 when he left the division after defending his WBO World super featherweight title against Nicky Cook. That was the farce where Cook came out in the 1st round and his back immediately ceased up and the fight was halted. Cook hasn’t fought since then.
How Cook was fighting for a world title was the big question, because he’d only had one fight in the past two years leading up to the title shot. Cook fought in 2009 in getting blown out in four rounds by Roman Martinez. Cook then stayed out of the ring until May of 2011 and beat Youssef Al Hamidi (8-33-2) by a 6 round decision, and he then was given a world title shot against Burns. It was match-making worse than the Danny Garcia vs. Rod Salka fight in my view.
Burns will need to melt down from 135 to 130 if he’s to fight at super featherweight, and I wonder whether he can actually do this after all these years. Even if Burns can make super featherweight, there isn’t soft job champions that he could likely beat. For Burns to become a champion, he’d have to beat one of the following champions at super featherweight: Orlando Salido, Rances Barthelemy, Takashi Uchiyama or Takashi Miura.
I’d pick any one of those guys over Burns, especially with him likely weight-drained from having melted down from the 140s to make weight. We’re probably talking about Burns having to melt down at least 15+ pounds for him to make super featherweight. Can Burns do that? Yeah, I think he could take the weight off, but I’d be willing to bet that he’d be incredibly weakened by the process.
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