Ricky Burns vs. Omar Figueroa possible for the spring

By Boxing News - 02/11/2015 - Comments

burns453By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (37-4-1, 11 KOs) has been talking a lot lately about a big announcement coming for his next fight. Supposedly, Burns was supposed to be fighting a big-named opponent. Well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

Instead of Burns facing a big name, it looks like he’s going to be fighting former WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa (24-0, 18 KOs), a fighter who some boxing fans saw as a paper champion before he was stripped of his title last November due to an injury he sustained in his harder than expected fight against Daniel Estrada last August.

Figueroa won the fight by a 9th round stoppage, but he looked terrible in that fight. Figueroa is now moving up to the light welterweight division [140] to try and campaign as a 140 pounder. Without much in the way of defense, Figueroa’s chances for success in this weight class are about slim and none.

The Burns-Figueroa fight still hasn’t been confirmed as of yet, but Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn is currently working on it. For Figueroa, you have to see this as more of a stay busy fight rather than a serious test. However, if Figueroa loses to Burn, then this is a clear sign that he’s not going anywhere at 140 or even 135 if he moved back down in weight.

YouTube video

The Burns-Figueroa fight is said to be taking place at a catch-weight above 135. The fight is likely to be staged in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As for Burns, he’s moving back down to lightweight after fighting once in the light welterweight division last October in beating little known Alexandre Lepelley by an 8 round decision. Burns did not look good against a fighter who likely would have been utterly destroyed by the quality fighters at 140 like Ruslan Provodnikov, Adrien Broner, Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson, to name just a small handful of guys.

“Nothing has been finalized although I would hope to be in a position to make a major announcement soon,” Hearn said via the Dailyrecord.co.uk.

Burns’ once promising career has hit bottom in the past year. After failing to make a big money fight against Adrien Broner, Burns has suffered losses to Terence Crawford and Dejan Zlaticanin in 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXOr7pwz75U

In hindsight, it would have been a smart move for Burns to have made the fight with Broner when the opportunity was there, because the cash that Burns could have made for that fight would have been a nice little nest egg for him to sit on once his career is finished.

Now there’s zero interest in a Burns-Broner fight now that Burns has been whipped twice by Crawford and Zlaticanin. A loss to Figueroa will pretty much put Burns’ career on skid row with him going down the tubes.

If Burns loses this fight, then I don’t know where Hearn can take him. I guess he can always match him up against the likes of Anthony Crolla and Derry Mathews in domestic level clashes.

Hearn can also put him in with Kevin Mitchell once he gets beaten in a world title clash. Mitchell will likely be licking his wounds after a loss and will need a confidence booster against someone like Burns.



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