By Scott Gilfoid: If trainer Ricky Hatton gets his wish, unbeaten #1 WBA challenger Kiryl Relikh (21-0, 19 KOs) will send WBA World light welterweight champion Ricky Burns (40-5-1, 14 KOs) skittering down to defeat tonight in their match at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. Hatton thinks the 26-year-old Relikh will break some hearts tonight by beating the hometown fighter Burns. Relikh is a NATURAL light welterweight unlike Burns, who has slowly eaten his way into the division. Power-wise, Burns is more of a super featherweight. He doesn’t have a light welterweight frame like Relikh.
Hatton just hopes that after Relikh beats Burns, he’ll be able to keep his many fans in Scotland. Relikh has the punching power, size and the youth to whip Burns like Dejan Zlaticanin did two years ago in 2014. The only question is does Relikh have the boxing skills and the talent to do the job.
Just being young and powerful might not be enough for Relikh to get the job done tonight against an old veteran like 33-year-old Burns. After all, Relikh will be entering the lion’s den tonight, and I can’t see him being given a decision unless he really puts it on Burns to the point where it’s just too obvious who the winner is in the fight. Raymundo Beltran found out how hard it is to beat Burns in Glasgow three years ago when he broke his draw and appeared to win a one-sided contest. The judges scored it a 12 round draw. It was pretty sad to see. Beltran hoped at the time that Burns would give him a rematch. No rematch ever came unfortunately. Beltran was ignored by Burns, who moved on and was soon beaten by Terence Crawford.
Presently, Relikh is an underdog in this fight. If Relikh does beat Burns, it would be huge news to the boxing world, because Burns is the clear favorite. That doesn’t mean Burns is the best fighter in the light welterweight division or even the second best. Burns is probably no better than No.10 in the 140lb division. He’s just a belt holder rather than THE CHAMPION. However, Relikh has no experience against live bodies with talent, and he’s someone that is completely out of place with his No.1 ranking given to him by the World Boxing Association. The WBA picked Relikh for some reason to be their No.1 fighter. They ignored arguably more talented fighters like Rances Barthlemey, Frankie Gomez, John Molina, Ruslan Provodnikov, Omar Figueroa Jr. and Adrian Granados. If Burns destroys Relikh like he did against the WBA’s previous No.1 contender Michele Di Rocco, it’s going to reflect on the WBA with their ranking system. If Relikh is really deserving of a No.1 ranking, then Burns shouldn’t be able to beat him so easily. It should be a very tough fight where Burns has to scrape hard to squeeze out a win. If Burns can blow through Relikh like he did against Di Rocco, then you have to shine the spotlight on the WBA and wonder what’s going on with this organization to be ranking guys that don’t have the talent to be ranked at No.1 or even at No.15.
“He’s very good, he’s the real deal,” Hatton said to skysports.com about Relikh. “It’s interesting you know that when you’ve got someone with 19 knockouts from 21 fights, people think he’s just a punching merchant, but everyone he’s fought, he’s walked through. We broke a few hearts then and I think we’re going to do it tomorrow night. I just hope if we do, do it, I’ll still have the same fans in Scotland that I’ve always had.”
Hatton says Relikh is the real deal. If he’s the real deal, then why wasn’t Hatton matching Relikh against quality opposition all this time? Relikh has been a pro since 2011. He should have at least fought one good fighter by now, shouldn’t he? Why in the heck has Hatton matched Relikh so weakly for five straight years? I don’t understand it.
When Hatton was a pro, he at least fought a few halfway decent old lions before facing and beating champion Kostya Tszyu by a wrestling/holding plagued fight in 2005. Hatton didn’t just fight dreadful opposition before facing Tszyu. As such, why hasn’t Relikh been matched against good opponents during his career? It makes me wonder if Hatton knows something that the boxing world doesn’t know about Relikh. Is Relikh really as good as Hatton says he is or is Relikh just a fighter with an inflated ranking who is just there for the payday? The good news is that we’ll find out tonight whether Relikh is a talented fighter or not. If Relikh gets beaten and battered by Burns, then we’ll have the answer. There’s no way that a fighter like Burns could batter the talented contenders like Frankie Gomez, Barthlemey, Granados or Molina Jr. I believe those would all result in defeats for Burns. Of course, we’re not seeing Burns fight those guys, are we?
What’s interesting is that Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn if Matchroom Sport didn’t push hard to have him skip past the Relikh fight like we’re seeing with WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew bypassing his #1 WBC contender Mairis Breidis and with IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua seemingly being steered around the dangerous #1 IBF Joseph Parker.
The fact that Hearn was willing to make the Burns vs. Relikh fight so quickly suggests to me that he’s not worried about Burns at all in this fight. He must feel that he can win the match easily.
“He’s not fought anyone at the level of Ricky Burns yet, but the manner in which he’s won those fights shows he’s got the extra. He’s not just a puncher,” said Hatton about Relikh. “He’s a lot more than just a puncher.”
I’ve seen Relikh fight, and he looks pretty limited to me. Relikh has a really left hook that he throws with major world class punching power. Other than that, Relikh doesn’t have much power in his right hand, he’s slow, upright, and very easy to hit. Relikh’s work rate is not what should be for him to make up for what he lacks in the boxing skills department.
Frankly, I’m surprised Hatton hasn’t made some tweaks in Relikh’s game by now to have him be a high volume puncher, because that’s clearly what he needs to be for him to be successful at the top of the 140lb division. Relikh needs to follow the Omar Figueroa Jr. blueprint in attacking Burns relentlessly for 12 rounds with nonstop punches for him to have a chance of winning. But it sounds to me like Hatton is going to try and have Relikh box Burns. I think that’s a STUPID idea, and it makes me wonder if Hatton’s head is screwed on correctly.