By Scott Gilfoid: To get him ready for what he’s going to be facing on March 16th, WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) against the tall 5’10” IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez (33-3, 13 KO’s), Burns is sparring with really tall fighters hoping that they can somehow get him prepared for what he’ll face in the ring at the Wembley Arena in London, England.
This obviously won’t help Burns because there isn’t anyone in the UK with the same kind of hard to hit defensive style that the 26-year-old Vazquez has.
Burns said to BoxNation “He’s [Vazquez] a very good technical puncher, very fast. When you fight, it’s quite the same as myself. It’s going to be a very tough fight. I’m bringing in tall sparring partners to prepare.”
Burns has got it all wrong. Vazquez is nothing like him at all. Vazquez doesn’t look to hold, rough you up inside, or punch you out the way that the light hitting Burns does. Vazquez is more of a pure boxer that moves around constantly, slapping with his shots, and using his long arms to keep his opponents on the outside.
Vazquez doesn’t get hit much, and he’s excellent making his opponents miss. He’s not going to stand in front of Burns just throwing jabs, and he’s not going to look to brawl with him the way that Kevin Mitchell did recently.
This is going to be a really tough fight for Burns, 5’10”, because he won’t have the height advantage over Vazquez like he’s had against 99% of his other opponents during his 12-year pro career. Vazquez will actually have a two inch reach advantage over Burns, and if you don’t believes that’s going to be an important factor in this fight then just watch on March 16th when Vazquez uses that extra reach to slap Burns from the outside.
Burns’ height has been the one thing that’s enabled him to beat his opposition during his career. You take away Burns’ height, and he’s a much more vulnerable fighter because he’s not a puncher, even though he tries.
Vazquez is going to have the reach advantage in this bout, and Burns is going to have figure out some other way to win other trying to use his height and reach. I just hope that Burns keeps it clean because I’d hate for him to go primitive on Vazquez and start fouling left and right without the referee lifting a finger to stop it.
If Burns does start with the holding & hitting and rabbit punches, then I really hope the referee is focused on doing his job because it’s so awful to watch a fighter fouling with a referee just standing there as if he’s a spectator in the ring.
Vazquez’s management needs to talk with the referee before the fight to make sure he’s alert to any fouling because we can’t have one of those fights that turns into an MMA type bout with one fighter fighting by the normal Marquess of Queensberry Rules, while the other has some kind of mix of boxing and MMA.
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