Burns faces Di Rocco for WBA 140lb title tonight

By Boxing News - 05/28/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: This could be the last chance for Ricky Burns (39-5-1, 13 KOs) to win one last world title in his contest tonight against #1 WBA Michele Di Rocco (40-1-1, 18 KOs) in their fight for the vacant WBA light welterweight title at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland.

This is like tee-ball for Burns. He’s the perfect opportunity to win an easy world title against a guy with a record that is filled completely with fluff from top to bottom. The 34-year-old Italian Di Rocco has yet to fight a good fighter during his career, and I think he has zero business being ranked #1 by the World Boxing Association. As such, I don’t know how the 33-year-old Burns could mess this one up and not win the WBA title.

I think Burns knows this too judging by the way he was getting in Di Rocco’s face during their face off on Friday and smiling like the Cheshire cat from ear to ear. Burns knows that he’s got this one in the bag.

If Burns loses this fight, then I think it’s over for him because I don’t give him any chance whatsoever of beating the light welterweight champions Terence Crawford, Eduard Troyanovsky and Viktor Postol. Those guys have too much talent, too much youth, and too much power for the light hitting Burns. If Burns loses tonight, he might need to do something drastic like moving back down to lightweight or super featherweight, because I see no opportunities for him at 140.

Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn can keep getting him world title shots at 140 if he wants to, but I don’t see it helping him if he can’t even beat Di Rocco. The good news is for Burns fans is that he probably will win tonight, so there’s no point in him having to take the nuclear option of moving back down to 135 to compete in that weight class.

Besides, I don’t think Burns’ body will let him fight in that weight class any longer. He’s simply too big, too old, and too stuck at his current weight for him to drain down to 135 and be effective at that weight. I mean, I think Burns can make weight for contests at lightweight, but I see him being too weak by the time he rehydrates and comes into the ring for him to be effective.

“We’ll see Burns do what he does best and that’s work at a crazy pace. I think Di Rocco will be game and will force his way into the later rounds but if Burns doesn’t get a late stoppage win then I think he’ll win on points,” said Kevin Mitchell to skysports.com.

Di Rocco likes to jab and move a lot, so I think we’re going to see a game of cat and mouse tonight. Burns is going to need to cut off the ring and force the issue otherwise he’s going to jabbed to pieces. With Burns, you just never know. Sometimes he looks great, but other times he messes things up for himself by fighting stupid.

We saw that on display in Burns’ loss to Omar Figueroa in 2014, when he spent much of the night holding Figueroa rather than punching. The fight was still close, but Burns lost any chance of winning the fight when the referee took off two points for his nonstop holding. Burns also has a bad habit of hanging on the ropes and covering up like a sparring partner. He did a lot of that in the Figueroa fight, as well as in his 12 round draw against Raymundo Beltran in 2013.

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Burns suffered a broken jaw in that fight. Now if he’d just stayed off the ropes, I think he wouldn’t have suffered the broken jaw and he would have had a good chance of winning the fight. It’s not as if Beltran is the greatest fighter in the lightweight division. His style has been solved many times by other fighters, and it was just very weird that Burns wasted his time covering up on the ropes instead of staying in the center of the ring.

If Burns stays on the ropes tonight, he’ll get jabbed to pieces by Di Rocco. I mean, Di Rocco may be feather-fisted but he can jab all night long with the best of them.