By William Mackay: Frank Warren Promotions has packaged the Michael Katsidis vs. Ricky Burns (32-2, 9 KO’s) fight and the George Groves vs. Paul Smith fights on one card on November 5th at the Wembley Arena. Katsidis-Burns was supposed to take place at the Kelvin Hall in Glascow, Scotland on November 12th.

The Groves-Smith fight was previously scheduled for December 17th at the Echo Arena in Liverpool.

However, by putting the two fights together, Warren really helps ensure that the card does really well. Groves-Smith really isn’t a huge fight on it’s own, and the same goes for Burns-Katsidis. But by putting them together, this is a really good deal for boxing fans.

Burns, 28, recently gave up his WBO super featherweight title in order to move up to fight Katsidis for the interim WBO lightweight belt. It was a big decision, because there’s really no guarantees that Burns is good enough to win a title in the stronger lightweight division. At super featherweight, Burns was able to carve a small niche by winning the WBO belt, but he never really faced the best guys in the division other than Roman Martinez.

Burns defended his World Boxing Organization title three times against obscure mediocre opposition, and when he was forced to finally face someone actually good in unbeaten Adrien Broner, Burns decided to vacate the belt and move in weight. We don’t know what Burns go at lightweight, especially with all the talented fighters at this weight.

Katsidis is a lot better than the guys that Burns has been fighting in the past, and with Burns’ style of brawling, he’s really tailor made for Katsidis. Burns fights the way that Katsidis likes to by standing and slugging, but lacks the power that Katsidis has. This could be a really bad massacre with Katsidis destroying Burns.

Katsidis has lost two out of his last three fights to Robert Guerrero and Juan Manuel Marquez. However, those guys are so much better than anyone that Burns has ever faced in his entire career that it’s meaningless where Katsidis has been beaten or not.

Groves, 23, is coming off of a questionable 12 round decision against James DeGale in his last fight. Groves needs a win over Paul Smith in order to make a case that he deserves to be ranked highly in the world rankings. Right now, DeGale is ranked above him despite having lost to Groves. It’s going to take a more impressive win for Groves to pick up the rankings he desires. Smith has a real chance of winning this fight, because Groves can be hurt and he’ll have to mix it up with Smith if he wants to win.

The fights will be aired on Sky channel 456 on Boxnation.