By Sott Gilfoid: WBO interim lightweight champion Ricky Burns (33-2, 9 KO’s) could be fighting for the full World Boxing Organization lightweight title when he steps foot in the ring on March 10th at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow, Scotland. The opponent that is being mentioned for the 28-year-old Burns is British lightweight champion Anthony Crolla (23-2, 9 KO’s) for this one.

This is the same kind of soft matchmaking that Burns was known for during his time at the WBO super featherweight champion. Burns defended his title three times against painfully weak opposition and right when he was set to finally fight someone with a shred of talent in Adrien Broner, Burns skedaddled away from the division and moved up in weight. It goes without saying that Broner would have blasted Burns apart had they fought.

Crolla, 25, isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies as of now, although I imagine by the time Burns meets up with Crolla on March 10th, Crolla will likely have been pushed to near the top of the heap by the WBO. But ideally it would be much better if Burns was taking on someone at least ranked in the top 15, preferably someone ranked in the top five like Kevin Mitchell, Paulus Moses, Sharif Bogere, or Alisher Raminov. I like all of those fighters much better than Crolla, who I haven’t been at all impressed with in his last three fights. Crolla seems to have become popular overnight based on his win over John Watson last February, but since then he’s looked absolutely mediocre to the extreme in fights against Juan Montiel and Willie Limond. I think Crolla is an awful choice for Burns to tell you the truth.

The reason the full WBO strap might be up for grabs for this fight is that Juan Manuel Marquez, the current champion, is only looking for big money fights now and he’s pretty much said he has no intention of fighting anyone other than Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather Jr. He would never likely waste time fighting an unknown fighter like Burns. That would be a waste. First of all, Marquez would destroy Burns, but second of all there’s no money in fighting an invisible fighter. Burns is only popular locally in the UK, and even there he’s not a huge star like David Haye and Amir Khan.

Burns recently beat Michael Katsidis in a 12 round decision last November. I thought Katsidis won the fight, and I wasn’t impressed with Burns. I do think he did the smart thing by bailing from the super featherweight division when he was scheduled to fight Adrien Broner. In doing that, Burns likely escaped a knockout loss, because Broner is arguably a lot better than Burns and it would have been a shooting gallery for Broner to blast away at Burns’ lantern jaw to knock him out.

Burns will easily beat Crolla in March, but what do you expect? You pull from the 2nd tier to find Crolla. Of course Burns is going to win. I would be really if he didn’t, because Crolla looks god awful. I can’t believe Golden Boy Promotions were thinking about putting him with their star Erik Morales. What an awful fight that would have been.