Warren: Burns has proven himself superior to Froch

By Boxing News - 09/29/2012 - Comments

Image: Warren: Burns has proven himself superior to FrochBy Scott Gilfoid: I got a big kick out of one of promoter Frank Warren’s comments when he pouring on the lather extra thick about how good his fighter WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns is following his win over Kevin Mitchell last Saturday night in Scotland.

Here’s what Warren had to say in his column at thesun.co.uk “For me, he [Burns] has proven superior to Carl Froch, who has twice been found wanting at world level. Both Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward unanimously outpointed ‘The Cobra’.”

That’s hilarious but Warren left out Froch’s highly questionable win over Andre Dirrell in pointing out fights where Froch’s talent has been found wanting. A ton of people feel that Froch should have lost the fight to Dirrell in 2009 in Nottingham, England. I had Dirrell winning by a lopsided 12 round decision over Froch in that fight and In still can’t believe the judges gave the win to Froch. Even if you ignore how easily Dirrell dominated Froch, the referee should have at least taken points away from Froch for his rough fouling of Dirrell throughout the fight. I think Froch should been disqualified in that fight. As such, I mentally see that as loss for Froch and not a win.

As far as Burns being superior to Froch because of a handful of wins. I don’t know that I agree. It’s difficult to compare fighters from different weight classes because it’s a whole different situation. But if I were to compare Burns’s victories to that of Froch’s, I’d have to rate Froch a lot higher. He’s beaten guys like Arthur Abraham, Lucian Bute, Glen Johnson, Jean Pascal and Jermain Taylor. Those are good fighters and Froch did beat them. Like I said, I don’t count Froch’s win over Dirrell. Burn’s best wins have come against Kevin Mitchell, Ramon Martinez, Paulus Moses, and Michael Katsidis. That’s it.

The other guys that Burns has beaten have been weak, no-name fighters in my view and I’m not impressed with wins over obscure guys. I had Burns losing to Katsidis, and I thought Burns looked terrible in that fight. Burns’ win over Martinez was a weight drained Martinez was a close one and I have my doubts that Burns could have been Martinez a year or two earlier when he was fighting at the top of his game. The win over Mitchell was an empty one for Burns as far as I’m concerned. Mitchell hasn’t been fighting often since his shellacking by Katsidis in 2010, and Burns looked to be a lot heavier than him. The size pretty much won the fight for Burns against Mitchell.

I don’t see that Burns has accomplished much of anything yet in his career. Until he takes on and beats Adrien Broner, Antonio DeMarco, Sharif Bogere and Jose Gonzalez, he’s just another paper title holder in my eyes.



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