By Scott Gilfoid: Now that Ricky Burns (33-2, 9 KO’s) has been appointed as the WBO lightweight champion courtesy of the World Boxing Organization, who voted him in as champion recently, Burns has got to defend his gift strap against Paulus Moses (28-1, 19 KO’s) in his first defense of his strap on March 10th at the Braehead Arena, in Glasgow, Scotland.

Moses, 5’8”, is the fastest, tallest and the most skilled opponent that Burns has ever fought before in his 11-year pro career and I see him being over his head in this one. Burns can’t punch, although he tries to fight like a puncher for some crazy reason.

Moses can punch and has knockout power in either hand to go along with an amazing jab that most lightweights, including Burns, would likely dream to have. Moses can pretty much dominate Burns with his jab alone on March 10th, but he’s obviously going to need to give Burns a major beating if he wants to earn a decision in Scotland.

I hate to say this but I think it may require a knockout for Moses to win. I do think he can win a decision if he knocks Burns down three or more times with the knockdowns spread out over 12 rounds. If they happen early or late in the fight, I can still see the judges handing Burns a good old hometown decision. Moses has to take the judges out of it by making it such a one-sided fight that they wouldn’t dare try giving the decision to Burns for fear of the backlash that would result.

Burns comes into this fight having won a controversial decision over Michael Katsidis in his last fight in November in the UK. Burns won it by the scores of 117-112, 117-111 and 117-111. I thought it was one of the worst scored fights in the history of boxing, as I had Katsidis winning that fight by a 9 rounds to 3 score and never saw it as a competitive fight. That was Burns’ first real fight since he beat a weight drained Roman Martinez in September 2010.

Burns took three fights against weak opposition following the Martinez fight in what looked like a prolonged milking of his WBO super featherweight title. When he finally was going to fight a real talent in Adrien Broner, Burns vacated the belt and moved up in weight. Some fans say that Burns ducked Broner, but I guess you got to make up your own mind about it. Burns beat three weak opponents and then was about to face a guy that many boxing fans see as the best fighter in the super featherweight division in Broner. Rather than take the fight, Burns moved up in weight. What do you think?