By Scott Gilfoid: WBO super featherweight champion Ricky Burns (32-2, 9 KO’s) will be moving up in weight to fight for the vacant interim World Boxing Organization (WBO) lightweight title in his next fight according to his promoter Frank Warren in a column at The Sun.
I guess it’s academic at this point that Burns won’t be fighting the young multi-talented number #1 WBO super featherweight contender Adrien Broner (21-0, 17 KO’s) next on November 26th, which had been talked about. I can’t say I’m surprised. It looks like a duck job by Burns.
I predicted as much when the fight first got kicked around. I knew that Burns would vacate rather than take on the talented Broner and get blasted out in one or two rounds the way that Jason Litzau did. But by moving Burns up to the lightweight division to capture the WBO interim lightweight strap, he’ll probably be able to keep winning for awhile even though division has some good names.
The current WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez will never in a million years waste time fighting a guy like Burns, and will likely be giving up his title soon anyway. Marquez is getting a huge payday against Manny Pacquiao in November, and he won’t want to go back to fighting little known guys Burns. Robert Guerrero, the previous WBO lightweight interim champion, has moved up to light welterweight, so he’s not going to get in Burns’ way by taking him on and destroying him.
Other than those guys, the only people Burns has to worry about is Mercito Gesta, Kevin Mitchell and Paulus Moses. Gesta will knock Burns out, but he may have to wait a long time before he gets a fight with him because I can see Warren matching Burns with Mitchell, as he promotes both fighters. It would be a nice little in house fight. Can’t say who would win that one, because both guys are flawed.
I guess Burns would will win once he taps Mitchell on the chin a few times and have him cowering against the ropes. But I hate the idea of Burns vacating his WBO super featherweight bout and not fighting Broner. That’s so sad. I was really looking forward to seeing Broner show some of his marvelous skills against the weak punching Burns. It would have been a pleasure to see Broner work. Now we’ll be seeing Broner fight someone like Eloy Perez for Burns’ vacated WBO belt. It won’t be nearly as interesting for me.
Comments are closed.