By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Ricky Hatton believes that his fighter Kiryl Relikh (21-1, 19 KOs) did enough to deserve a narrow 12 round unanimous decision against WBA World 140lb champion Ricky Burns (41-5-1, 14 KOs) last Saturday night at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. Like a lot of boxing fans, Hatton was absolutely shocked at the dreadful scores handed down by the three judges that worked the fight.
Here are the score from the three judges: Raul Caiz Sr.116-112, Jesus Cova 118-110, and Terry O’Connor 116-112. Here is the score from Gilfoid: 112-112 for Relikh. With the blown call on the knockdown that occurred in the 12th round in which Burns was dropped, I would have had my score even wider for Relikh, but the referee Howard John Foster missed the knockdown.
Relikh nailed Burns with three solid head shots, causing him to stumble from the impact of the shots. Relikh then nailed Burns with a cuffing, but perfectly legal, left hand to put him down. Foster didn’t score the knockout. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered. With the way the judges scored the fight, Relikh would have needed several knockdowns to have a chance at winning. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen with Burns running all around the ring, and holding at every opportunity.
“I thought he had done enough to pinch it,” said Hatton to skysports.com about his fighter Relikh. “I thought he had maybe edged it. The 118-110 and 116-112, I can’t get my head around it. I think the first four rounds there was no question, and rounds 10 and 11, for me, no question. He shook him up one or two times. I can’t say it was bad results. The scoring was shocking. A draw would have made more sense, because I felt he had done just enough. The last two rounds, coming down the home stretch, I think he might have done enough to steal it, but it wasn’t enough. If the three judges had given it to Ricky by one, I couldn’t complain. He’ll come again,” said Hatton about Relikh. “He’s never boxed nobody of the opposition that Ricky’s boxed, and I think that showed. You can see how he’s knocked so many people out. He’s very heavy handed, but he hasn’t had the rounds under his belt. I think Ricky’s experience in certain rounds gave him enough to nick it. I was just disappointed in the scorecards.”
I’m sure Hatton would love to get a rematch for his fighter Relikh, but thus far there’s been nothing said from Burns or his promoter Eddie Hearn about a second fight between them. Burns is talking about moving on to fight Adrien Broner in December. I suppose if the fighters go in different directions with Burns getting thrashed by Broner, and Relikh winning all of his fight s after this, we’ll see Burns show interest in fighting Relikh again. Of course, there won’t be any reason for Relikh to take the fight then, because his career will be far beyond Burns. There would be no reason for Relikh to fight a runner like Burns. I hate to say it, but that’s what Burns is – a runner in my opinion. If you watch last night’s fight between them, all you can say is that Burns survived because he ran for 12 rounds, but he shouldn’t have won the fight.
It was pretty sad to see how the fight was scored by the three judges. With how wide the scores were, they seemed to give Burns rounds in which Relikh clearly won. You can make a strong argument that Relikh did enough to win rounds 1-4, 6, 9-12. The missed knockdown by Foster would have made the fight even wider. It’s just so, so disappointing to see oddball scores like the ones from the three judges that worked the Burns-Relikh fight last Saturday night. If you look around the internet today, you’ll find that overwhelming the boxing world is saying that Relikh should have been given the decision in the fight.
“We knew it was going to be tough out there but I got the win and that is the main thing and we can move on to the next one now,” said Burns to skysports.com. “I woke up this morning and feel like I have been hit by a bus, so I think I am going to have a few days off, relax and we will take it from there.”
Well, you can’t say that Burns was hit all that much in the fight by Relikh, because he was running most of the fight. If this was a fight on pay-per-view, I think there would have been a lot of angry fans today because it was awful to watch. The aftermath was even worse with the judges giving Burns a one-sided win in a fight that looked to have been won by Relikh.
Burns chose to use a TON of movement in the fight, especially in the last four rounds in which Relikh started to put a lot of Golovkin-like pressure on Burns. Even with Burns running, Relikh was able to catch him again and again to punish him with big shots to the head and body.
“He had a good start and a good finish, and there were some rounds it could have gone either way,” said Burns. “I felt I was landing the cleaner shots. I did think the judges’ scoring was a bit off. I have watched the fight back this morning and I would say it was maybe two or three rounds – definitely two rounds, three at the most.”
Relikh was landing the harder shots all throughout the fight, so I can’t say that Burns was landing the cleaner shots. Burns was missing most of his shots. The punches that he did land were weak looking to me, and appeared to barely connect. Burns was pushing his punches instead of putting his body behind them the way fighters are supposed to.
Relikh has room for improvement. Here are the areas where I think Relikh needs to improve:
– Pressuring and cutting off the ring – Relikh needs to get better at cutting off the ring against runners like Burns. You can bet that other fighters are going to study what Burns did and use running as well to avoid Relikh. If Relikh wants to be like Gennady Golovkin, then he’s going to need to start pressuring in a much more intense way than he did in rounds 1 through 10. Relikh did a great job of pressuring Burns in the 11th and 12th rounds, but he shouldn’t have waited so long to fight like that. Had Relikh applied major pressure on Burns in the earlier rounds, he would have knocked him out easily.
– Focusing more on offense than defense – Relikh needs to forget about his defense and focus on just letting his hands go. He was trying too hard to box rather than slug last night, and got caught up in Burns’ style of fighting. A fighter like Golovkin would NEVER have fought a runner like Burns the way Relikh did. Golovkin wouldn’t have worried trying not to get hit like Relikh was. Golovkin would have taken whatever punches he had to just to get close enough to Burns to nail him with power shots. I’m surprised that Hatton didn’t talk some sense into Relikh early on to force him forget about defense and to use his HUGE power advantage to go after Burns. Maybe Hatton isn’t the right trainer for Relikh. If I were Relikh, I would dump Hatton and move over to California to start training with Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez, because he would have told Relikh that he needed to start attacking Burns from the early rounds. Sanchez would have likely told Relikh to stop focusing on his defense and instead go after Burns and unload on him. When you’ve got a weak puncher like Burns in the ring with you, it’s STUPID to try and box him. What the heck was that all about? Relikh should have been trying to decapitate Burns with every shot, and he should have stayed close to him.
– Cutting off the ring better – Relikh was too slow at cutting off the ring on Burns until the 11th and 12th rounds. If you look at the foot speed that Relikh used in those rounds, it was much quicker than the speed he used earlier in the fight. Relikh was the younger guy. He should have chased the old lion down and battered Burns. It’s too late now.