By Scott Gilfoid: I swear, WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) looked like a small junior middleweight against a pumped up super featherweight Kevin Mitchell (33-2, 24 KO’s) in winning a 4th round TKO on Saturday night in front of a sold out crowd of 9000 fans at the Scottish Exhibition Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.

I’m not surprised that Mitchell got beat, because Burns looked way heavier than the 135 pound lightweight limit tonight. Just looking at the two of them in the ring, it was like watching guys more two divisions apart. I’d be interested to know how heavy Burns came into the fight because he looked like a freaking junior middleweight. I think he won on size rather than power or skills. Burns did a better job of rehydrating up to whatever weight he ended up. Mitchell should probably move back down to super featherweight because he doesn’t have the size to compete against guys like Burns and Adrien Broner. They’re too big for him.

As far as the action goes, Mitchell got nailed and put down in the 4th round by a left hook from Burns that he never saw coming. Mitchell was in the process of throwing a left of his own but Burn’s shot got their first and put him down. After Mitchell got back to his feet you just knew that he wasn’t going to last long because when referee Terry O’Connor told Mitchell to start fighting, Mitchell staggered as he walked forward.

That wasn’t a good sign. Burns then backed Mitchell up and dropped him after landing three beautiful right hand rabbit shots. I personally thought the knockout shouldn’t have counted due to the placement of the punches, but O’Connor ruled it as legit. This time when Mitchell got back to his feet he was really hurt. Once again O’Connor let the action resume and Burns quickly backed the hurt Mitchell to the ropes and unloaded a flurry of clubbing shots, some of them appearing to the back of Mitchell’s head unfortunately. O’Connor then stepped in and wisely stopped the fight.

I have no problem with the stoppage because Mitchell wasn’t going to do anything and would have been knocked out had the fight been allowed to continue. I wasn’t impressed with Burns’ performance. I saw him as the lightweight division’s version of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. tonight with how big looking he was. Burns was huge compared to Mitchell, and this isn’t the first time that I’ve noticed that. I don’t know Burns can make weight. The WBO needs some kind of rehydration limits because this guy was just too big looking tonight and Mitchell could have gotten hurt.

I’d like to see a little more parity in terms of the fighter’s weights on fight night because if you’ve got a guy bloating up to a much higher weight than the other guy it makes it less about skill and more about size. I think that’s what happened tonight. Mitchell just didn’t have the size to compete with Burns. Mitchell was landing some good shots in the 1st and 2nd rounds, but the extra weight that Burns was carrying was a real advantage for him tonight.