Ricky Burns vs. Kiryl Relikh on October 7

By Boxing News - 08/26/2016 - Comments

Image: Ricky Burns vs. Kiryl Relikh on October 7

By Scott Gilfoid: WBA World light welterweight champion Ricky Burns (40-5-1, 14 KOs) will be making his first defense of his World Boxing Association against his #1 WBA mandatory challenger Kiryl Relikh (21-0, 19 KOs) on October 7 at The SSE Hydro, in Glasgow, Scotland.

This is going to be a really tough fight for the 33-year-old Burns, because Relikh is a real talent from Belarus with a lot of punching power and youth. Relikh is only 26, and he’s knocked out his last 11 opponents over a four-year time span. I see Relikh as the 140lb division’s version of Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, but he’s a heck of a lot younger than him.

Relikh will be stepping into Burns’ world when he faces him in Glasgow on October 7, and he might need a knockout in this fight to have a chance of winning. Fortunately for Relikh, he brings his own judges with him everywhere he goes in the form of his two fists. He’s not going to let the fight go to the scorecards if he can help it. As such, the fight might as well be in Burns’ backyard of his home and in front of his own family members for all good that it’ll help him. Relikh is going to be looking for make Burns his 12th consecutive knockout victim as he strides through time.

Burns captured the vacant WBA 140lb title last May with an 8th round knockout victory over Italian Michele Di Rocco at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow. It didn’t matter that Burns had the hometown advantage in that fight, because he was always going to win it. It’s unclear why the WBA ranked the 34-year-old Di Rocco as their No.1 challenger with their organization.

His record was TOTALLY padded with weak opposition from start to finish. Di Rocco had never beaten anyone good during his career He had a loss to Giuseppe Lauri in 2007. The WBA skipped over a lot of talented contenders to put Di Rocco as their No.1 contender.

I couldn’t come up with a Mickey Mouse ranking like that in a million years, and yet the WBA had him at No.1. If not for the WBA ranking Di Rocco at No.1, I think Burns would have had no chance of winning their WBA title. Burns is a decent fighter, but he’s seen better days and the 140lb has gotten a lot better lately.

“Relikh is a very tough fight as a first defence. He’s got a high KO ratio so he will be very dangerous throughout. Trust me he has my undivided attention and I will have to be at my best to get through this,” said Burns via skysports.com.

Burns better not be looking past Relikh, because he could wind up picking up his teeth around the ring if he doesn’t have his entire focus on this unbeaten talent. Relikh has got sneaky power. His right hand is like dynamite. If he connects with it on Burns’ chin, it’s going to be all over with. I rate Relikh as a better puncher than Dejan Zlaticanin, and we saw what he did to Burns in their fight in June 2014.

Zlaticanin whipped Burns and put him on the canvas in the 1st round. The judges scored the fight a 12 round split decision win for Zlaticanin, but I had him winning 11 rounds to 1. The scoring of that fight was just dreadful to say the least. The fight took place in Glasgow, Scotland.

“There are some massive fights out there in the future against some huge names in the 140lbs division – but we’re taking it one step at a time, and that starts on October 7 at the Hydro,” said Ricky Hatton to skysports.com. “There always has to be a changing of the guard and I think this could be Kiryl’s time.”

I agree with Hatton. I think Burns is going to lose to Relikh. It’s time for the new blood to take over in boxing. Burns is a former three division world champion with his win over Di Rocco, but that doesn’t mean much due to the guys that he beat to get those world titles.

Relikh is the wrong guy for Burns to be fighting if he wants to hold onto his WBA title. At least the sanctioning body finally got something right by putting Relikh in at No.1. I still don’t know why the WBA didn’t put Relikh in at No.1 last May for Burns to fight him for the vacant WBA title last May. If they had done that, It think Relikh would be the champion and Burns trying to pick up the broken pieces of his career.

It’s going to be really tough on Burns to try and handle the punching power from Relikh. This isn’t an opponent that Burns is going to be able to smother his offensive firepower by holding him and putting applying arm-bars one after another. Burns is going to need to focus on generating some offense for a change, because his negative spoiling tactics won’t be enough to stifle Relikh’s power.

British heavyweight Dillian Whyte will be fighting on the undercard of the Burns vs. Relikh fight card against an opponent still to be determined. It’ll be interesting to see if Whyte has gotten full use of his left shoulder. In his two fights since his shoulder surgery last year, Whyte’s left hand power seems to be completely missing. It’s unclear whether Whyte will ever regain his once incredible left hand power or not.