By Scott Gilfoid: After having lost two out of his last three fights, former two division world champion Ricky Burns (37-4-1, 11 KOs) is getting another chance to prove himself as still being a relevant fighter when he faces former WBC lightweight strap holder Omar Figueroa Jr (24-0-1, 18 KOs) on May 9th at a still to be determined venue in San Antonio, Texas.
Burns, 31, is pretty excited about this fight, as he sees it as an opportunity to rejuvenate his sagging career. Burns is hoping he can beat the 25-year-old Figueroa to get back into the thick of things at 135.
Some boxing fans see Figueroa as a former paper champion at lightweight, as he struggled badly to beat the likes of Daniel Estrada, Jerry Belmontes and Nihito Arakawa in his last three fights.
With the way that Figueroa was fighting before he was injured in his last fight, he clearly wouldn’t have been able to hold onto his WBC title for much longer.
Figueroa suffered a bad cut in his last bout against Estrada last year. The World Boxing Council then didn’t waste any time in giving Figueroa the “Champions in Recess” designation. This led to Jorge Linares picking up the WBC lightweight title that was stripped from Figueroa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXOr7pwz75U
“The last time I felt this excited ahead of a fight was when I was fighting the big names and fighting for my world titles – Roman Martinez, Michael Katsidis or when I boxed Kevin (Mitchell),” Burns said via Skysports.com. “This is going to bring the best out of me.”
I’m honestly not too impressed with Figueroa as a fighter, as he did look terrible in his last three fights at lightweight. However, I do think he’s more than good enough to handily beat Burns by either a knockout or a lopsided decision. Burns doesn’t fight well against pressure fighters, as we saw in his fights against Michael Katsidis, Jose Gonzalez, Raymundo Beltran and Dejan Zlaticanin.
Interestingly enough, Burns only lost two out of those four fights. I had Burns losing to Beltran and Katsidis by one-sided decisions, so I see Burns as having lost three out of those four fights.
Also on the Burns-Figueroa card is Matthew Macklin, Frankie Gavin, Sam Eggington and Gamal Yafai in separate fights.
As I mentioned earlier, Burns has lost two out of his last three fights in defeats against Terence Crawford and Zlaticanin. Burns’ only win during that period was against 2nd tier fighter Alexandre Lepelley in a fight that was a lot closer than the scores that were handed down. In 2013, Burns was given a 12 round draw against Raymundo Beltran in one of the worst scored fights I’ve ever seen before.
Burns suffered a broken jaw in the 2nd round, and he spent the last 10 rounds pretty much doing nothing more than holding Beltran and covering up. How the judges could have scored that fight a draw is beyond me, as Burns was doing zero in the fight other than covering up and taking shots for the last 10 rounds.
Comments are closed.