By Sean McDaniel: WBO super featherweight champion Ricky Burns has been receiving a lot or positive press since capturing the World Boxing Organization title against Ramon Martinez. Burns has defended the title once against Andreas Evensen and will be making his 2nd defense of the belt on Saturday night against the hard hitting Joseph Laryea at the Braehead Arena, in Scotland.

Although Laryea isn’t well known and hasn’t a lot of experience, he may open some eyes on Saturday against Burns. Laryea has a real chance to win this fight if he can use his height, reach and power advantage to take the fight to Burns and get him into a war.

That’s how Burns likes to fight, but in this case it might be in Burns’ best interest to try and focus on boxing rather than trading with him. Burns doesn’t want to end up like fellow Scot Paul Appleby, who Laryea pummeled around the ring last December, beating him up and winning a 12 round decision. This is what happens when you try to slug with a slugger and don’t have the required tools for that kind of trade.

Burns seems to fancy himself as a mini slugger, and that could spell disaster for him against Laryea unless he changes his tactics for this fight. Burns is going to have to try and stay clear of Laryea’s big looping shots if he doesn’t want to get battered and taken out. Burns has a decent chin but he’s not someone that can take the kind of power shots that Laryea can land without going down. It’s smarter for Burns to run and fight another day rather than taste his own blood and take a beating from the hard hitting Ghanaian fighter.