By Scott Gilfoid: After WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) gets though with his scheduled title defense in January in Glasgow, Scotland against an opponent still to be determined, his promoter Frank Warren says he wants to put Burns in with the best that the lightweight division has so that he can find success in 2013 and onward.
Warren said to thesun.co.uk “Already 29, Ricky needs to be unleashed against the cream of the division if he is to reap the rewards his talent merits.”
It’s true that Burns needs to start facing the best fighters at 135, because at 29 it’s high time that he start doing this. Fighting guys like Kevin Mitchell, Michael Katsidis and Paulus Moses hasn’t done much for Burns because those guys aren’t huge stars. Burns didn’t look all that great Katsidis, as I had him losing that fight in getting outworked by the Australian.
Burns could have fought WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner on February 16th, but he didn’t take the fight and instead he’s likely going to have to settle for facing one of his contenders that the World Boxing Organization has ranked in their top 15. All I can hope for there is that Burns doesn’t select from the bottom and face some easy no-name opponent to make sure he doesn’t lose. I’d hate to see him pick from the bottom instead of the very top.
If you’re going to be proving yourself as the best fighter in the division, you’ve got to take the hardest fighters out there each time. Since Burns isn’t fighting Broner, I’m hoping he faces his #1 WBO contender Jose Gonzalez.
Burns needs to start fighting the top guys like IBF champion Miguel Vazquez and the winner of the Sharif Bogere vs. Richard Abril fight, and of course Broner. We’ll see what direction Burns goes in the next year, but I don’t see him fighting any of those guys next year.
Vazquez is incredibly good, and so is Bogere and Abril. And Broner is in a class to himself. I don’t think Burns will fight any of those guys in 2013, 2014 or 2015. I just see him fighting the bottom ranked guy and then eventually his mandatory, followed by another bottom ranked #15 contender and so on.
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