By Scott Gilfoid: Moments ago, Ricky Burns (40-5-1, 14 KOs) defeated #1 WBA Michele Di Rocco (40-2-1, 18 KOs) by an 8th round knockout to capture the vacant WBA World light welterweight champion on Saturday night at The SSE Hydro, in Glasgow, Scotland. Burns knocked Di Rocco down with a series of hard shots thrown while the two were wrestling around on the inside.
Burns got enough leverage on the punches to hurt Di Rocco and flatten him. It looked like Di Rocco was exhausted from the fast pace of the fight, and simply fell down from that more than anything. The punches from Burns were hard, but not so hard that Di Rocco should have gone down from them.
Burns dropped the 34-year-old Di Rocco twice in the fight; once in the 3rd and a final time in the 8th. The fight was then stopped by referee Terry O’Connor after Di Rocco got back to his feet. Di Rocco was staggering and not able to stand properly. The victory for Burns gives him a third division world title.
In the 3rd round, Burns caught Di Rocco against the ropes and fired a brief flurry of shots that sent him down. However, it looked like Burns pushed Di Rocco down rather than sending him down by a punch.
Di Rocco came out fighting at a very fast pace in the 1st round. He was missing his punches, and running into a lot of hard jabs from Burns. Di Rocco fought like an amateur fighter instead of professional. He was making it too easy for Burns. Near the end of the 1st round, Burns staggered Di Rocco with a hard jab that sent him staggering backwards across the ring. Di Rocco ran into the jab by rushing forward and getting nailed. He normally wouldn’t have been hurt by the punch but he ran into it with his wild fighting style.
Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn will likely look to match him against a big name like Adrien Broner. The American talent attempted to fight Burns five years ago when the two of them were in the super featherweight division, but Burns chose to vacate his title and move up to lightweight rather than face him. The WBA title Burns captured tonight was Broner’s belt that was recently stripped from him after he failed to make weight for his title defense against Ashley Theophane last April. Hearn might be able to lure Broner into taking the fight with Burns if he offers him enough money. I don’t think Burns can beat Broner by any means, but it would still make for a big fight if the match can be made. What Hearn doesn’t need to do is have Burns milk the WBA title because there’s too much risk that he would lose his title in his defense. Even the bottom feeders in the World Boxing Association’s rankings are pretty solid fighters that would have an excellent chance of beating Burns. The WBA made an odd move in putting Di Rocco as their number one fighter, because I didn’t rate him even as bottom 15 type guy. It’s like the WBA had upside down rankings with the weakest fighter ranked No.1 rather than having the best. If Burns chooses to scrape from the bottom of the WBA’s rankings for his first defense, he could lose to one of these contenders:
10. Antonio Orozco
11. Khabib Allakhverdiev
12. Julio De Jesus
13. Ramal Amanov
14. Regis Prograis
15. Brian Zarza
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In other boxing results on the card, light welterweight Tyrone Nurse (33-2-1, 6 KOs) defeated Willie Limond (39-5, 11 KOs) by a 9th round TKO. Limond was taking a beating in the fight. It was halted by referee Victor Loughlin at 1:54 of the round. It’ll be interesting to see if Limond continues his career after this defeat.
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Nigel Benn’s son Conor Benn (2-0, 1 KOs) won his second fight of his career in defeating Luke Keleher (2-5-1, 1 KOs) by a round unanimous decision. It’s unfortunate that Benn couldn’t get the knockout. It would suggest that there may be lack of punching power with him.
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Middleweight prospect Anthony Ogogo (9-0, 5 KOs) destroyed an over-matched Chris Herrmann (21-11-1, 12 KOs) by a 3rd round TKO. Ogogo, a 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, had his way with Herrmann in blasting him around the ring in a real mismatch. It wasn’t the greatest fight you’ll ever see if you like watching competitive fights.