Burns complains about Figueroa’s holding

By Boxing News - 05/09/2015 - Comments

Omar Figueroa vs Ricky BurnsBy Scott Gilfoid: British lightweight Ricky Burns (37-5-1, 11 KOs) ruined his chance of winning tonight against Omar Figueroa (25-0-1, 18 KOs) by holding too frequently and winding up getting docked twice by the referee in losing by a 12 round unanimous decision on Premier Boxing Champions on CBS from the State Farm Arena in Hidalgo, Texas.

Burns, 32, complained after the fight that Figueroa had held as much as he did, and that was the reason why he held him as much as he did. But it’s pretty clear that Burns couldn’t handle the fire power of from Figueroa and needed to resort to clinching for him to survive the full 12 rounds.

Burns especially had problems with Figueroa’s power in the last three rounds of the fight.

Where Burns went wrong was failing to listen and follow the instructions from the referee Lawrence Cole when he gave Burns repeated warnings. I mean, I lost track of all the warnings Cole gave to Burns before he took his first point away from him for pulling down on Figueroa’s head. Cole was being very kind though because he never took a point away from Burns for his rabbit punches that he was nailing Figueroa with all night long or his hitting on the break.

“We knew it was going to be a tough fight, but I didn’t agree with the deductions for holding. I thought he was holding as much as me and that’s why I had to tie him up,” Burns said. “We moved up in weight for this one but still had some trouble making weight.”

Burns had trouble making 140? That isn’t good. He’s fighting in the lightweight division and he’s now having problems making the 140 pound division. That’s not good obviously. But as far as Burns talking about Figueroa holding as much as he did, that obviously didn’t happen. From what I could see of the fight, Figueroa wasn’t holding at all. Even when he was in close throwing his nonstop punches, he wasn’t holding.

The scores were 116-110, 116-110 and 117-109. I thought the last score was fair. The other two were a little too close.

“I think it was his size that gave me problems more than anything,” Burns said. “I don’t know what weight he was in that ring, but it was a lot bigger than me.”

I hate to be the one to break this to Burns, but he was the bigger guy tonight, not Figueroa. It was clear from looking at the two guys that Burns was bigger than Figueroa and looked like a welterweight and not a light welterweight.



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