By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) will be back in the ring on December 15th, possibly against a top 10 contender. However, Liam Walsh, a #13 WBO contender has been mentioned as someone who could end up facing Burns. That’s not exactly a top 10 contender, is it?
Burns said in an interview today that he’s interested in fighting the winner of the November 17th fight between WBC lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco and Adrien Broner in a unification match.
Burns said to Iflilm London
“That is fight I would obviously love. But, again, Adrien Broner’s got a tough fight with DeMarco as well. But, I know, (promoter Frank Warren) said that if I get through this, obviously we can maybe get a fight with the winner.”
Warren has mentioned IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez as someone that Burns could fight in a unification bout. I didn’t read where Warren would match Burns up against the Broner-DeMarco winner. I kind of highly doubt that Warren will make that fight because Broner is so powerful and talented that he’d likely make quick work of Burns. It would be like watching Broner take Jason Litzau apart again.
Burns is a decent fighter, but he’s clearly not on the same level as Broner. I expect that if Broner beats DeMarco in November, we’ll probably see Burns angled against either Vazquez in a unification bout or maybe taking on DeMarco, the lower. It won’t exactly be sporting but that’s how I see it going down. DeMarco and Vazquez would likely have to agree to fight Burns in Scotland for the fight to happen because I don’t see Burns coming out of Scotland to take on either of these guys, no way.
A lot of boxing fans think that Burns ducked Broner last year when he had the chance to fight him. Burns moved up in weight to the lightweight division rather than taking the tough Broner fight. That’s what he said. Some boxing fans think Burns got stage fright when he was on the verge of facing Broner. I guess we’ll never know for sure. All we do know is that Burns moved up in weight rather than staying at super featherweight to fight Broner. We know that Burns had three title defenses against nothing but soft opposition at super featherweight against Andreas Evensen, Joseph Laryea and Nicky Cook.
If Burns does agree to fight Broner next year then it’ll show what a warrior he is. Hopefully Burns doesn’t all of a sudden start having problems making weight just when Broner is about to fight him. I’d hate to see Burns move up in weight again when faced with a Broner fight.
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