By Scott Gilfoid: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) thinks WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) is doing to the smart thing by choosing not to fight him despite having had an opportunity to fight him twice. Broner says he totally understands Burns’ situation, and he thinks he’s doing a good job fighting the kinds of guys he’s being matched up with right now.
Broner said to thaboxingvoice.com “Who WOULD want to fight me? I don’t blame him [Burns]. He’s doing good, he’s doing alright. Just stay away from me [if you want to keep doing good].”
I agree with Broner. Burns needs to stay far, far away from Broner if he wants to keep doing good. Broner is arguably a level above Burns in talent, and there’s not much in Burns’ game that Broner wouldn’t have an answer for.
Burns has had two chances to fight Broner and he’s twice decided not to take the fight. I get the feeling that Broner doesn’t want to waste any more time looking to make a match with Burns. Once Broner gets past Gavin Rees on Saturday night in Atlantic City, we’ll likely see Broner matched up against Miguel Vazquez next if he beats Burns on March 16th.
Even if Burns wins that fight, I think Broner won’t bother trying to make that fight unless Burns’ promoter puts in an effort to put the fight together. It didn’t work in the past with Golden Boy trying to make it happen, so it’s going to have to be driven by Burns’ management if they want to put this fight on.
When you have a situation where you’ve been wasting time trying to put together a fight with someone that’s dragging their heels like Burns, then it’s better to cut your losses and move on instead of wasting your breath.
Personally, I don’t see why Burns’ management would want to put him in with Broner because they have a good thing going right now in matching Burns up against over-matched opposition like Kevin Mitchell, Paulus Moses, and Nicky Cook. If they break that pattern by putting Burns in with someone that’s actually good like Broner, then we’ll likely see Burns badly exposed and then he won’t be champion anymore. I mean, if they put Burns in with Broner and Burns gets spanked badly, it might be a little tough trying to sell tickets for his future fights. I suppose the British fans would come back and still support Burns in his numbers just like before, but I think it might take a while for fans to erase the image of Burns getting pounded by Broner.
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