Burns still looking for an opponent for March 10th defense in Scotland

By Boxing News - 12/31/2011 - Comments

Image: Burns still looking for an opponent for March 10th defense in ScotlandBy Scott Gilfoid: WBO interim lightweight champion Ricky Burns (33-2, 9 KO’s) is still looking for an opponent for his first fight defending his interim strap on March 10th at the Braehead Arena in Glascow, Scotland. Burns, 28, was supposed to be facing the unranked Anthony Crolla next instead of an actual top 15 contender but this little mismatch won’t be going through according to the latest boxing news.

That’s a good thing because Crolla would have been over his head in this fight.

I’d like to see Burns face Kevin Mitchell, Robert Guerrero or Jorge Linares next and I can see all three of those guys knocking him out. However, I’m not hopeful that Burns will be fighting any of those guys anytime soon if ever.
Burns won the WBO interim title recently in a life and death fight against Michael Kataidis last month in a fight where Burns was outworked and outlanded by the hard hitting Katsidis.

However, the judges gave the fight to Burns for some reason. Having seen the fight several times, the best I could give Burns was three rounds. He looked awful. Burns moved up in weight after a disappointing short run as the WBO super featherweight champion from September 2010 to September 2011. During that time, Burns fought only one quality fighter the weight drained Roman Martinez.

After winning a difficult fight against Martinez in Scotland, Burns followed it with three title defenses against weaker opposition. Finally when a mouth-watering fight was on the horizon with Burns set to face unbeaten #1 contender Adrien Broner, Burns suddenly vacated his title and moved up in weight to fight in the lightweight division.

Burns may be able to pick up the WBO belt without even having to fight for it if the current champion Juan Manuel Marquez vacates the belt in 2012 to move up in weight. One would hope that Burns won’t follow the same pattern that he had at super featherweight and fight little known opposition that pose no threat to beating him.

Broner is already talking about moving up in weight, so hopefully Burns won’t have weight problems again and vacate this belt too.



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