Hearn doubts Burns vs. Broner fight will ever happen

By Boxing News - 02/18/2013 - Comments

broner556By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn, the promoter for Gavin Rees, doubts that the management for WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) will agree to fight a unification bout with WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s), if Burns gets past IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez on March 16th in London. While Hearns thinks Burns would take the fight with Broner, he has doubts whether Burns’ people will let Burns face Broner because of how difficult a fight it would be for Burns.

Hearn thinks Burns’ people will simply price him out of the fight by asking for too much money rather than flat out saying no to the fight. Hearn just sees Broner as too good for any lightweight in the division.

Hearn said to I Film London “You have to respect him as a fighter. He’s the best lightweight in the world by a mile. I think Ricky Burns is so smart tactically. He’ll give Broner a little bit of a different fight than Gavin did. Will he [Burns] beat Adrien Broner? I would say no. I think he’s too good, I think he’s too skilled. Can that fight happen? His [Burns] fight with Miguel Vazquez is his first real fight. Is there enough interest in that fight [Burns vs. Broner] to make it happen. I would say probably not. It’s pretty easy to price yourself out of a fight. These people around him [Burns] might not want to fight Adrien Broner. There comes a time if you beat Miguel Vazquez, what do you have next? You have these meaningless defenses. He’s ready if he beats Vazquez to go into these monster fights with the likes of Broner, but it’s a really, really tough fight. But his [Burns] people have to be ready to put it on the line and fight him. For me, I think that’s what you’re in the sport for.”

I agree with a lot of what Hearn says in the interview, but I don’t see him as being any different if he were the one managing Burns. I don’t think for a second Hearn would allow Burns, a big ticket seller in Scotland and London, to get whipped by Broner and then lose that revenue stream. The one big payday would be nice, but then you might see a big drop off in attendance for Burns’ fights after he gets smashed by Broner.

Would Hearn be willing to have that happen? I doubt it. Hearn recently said he didn’t see the point in putting his fighter Darren Barker in with WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin because it was too risky of a fight with little reward. We’re also hearing about Hearn talking about putting his fighter EBU super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton in with Jonathan Romero for the IBF super bantamweight title instead of putting Frampton in with WBA champion Guillermo Rigondeaux or WBO champion Nonito Donaire.

So I don’t see Hearn as being any different than Burns’ management. I agree with him that Burns’ team will likely price him out of the fight, but it’s pretty much what Hearn would likely do as well. It was easy for Hearn to match Gavin Rees with Broner because Rees isn’t a huge ticket seller like Carl Frampton, but I don’t think for a second that Hearn would allow Frampton to fight someone like Donaire or Rigondeaux because of the potential that it hurts his revenue stream for Frampton.

It’s too bad the Burns-Broner fight likely won’t get made because it would be a good one, but the fact that Burns has twice failed to take the fight with Broner when it was offered to him tells you all you need to know in predicting future possibilities for this fight. I just see Burns’ team name dropping Broner like mad to keep getting attention for their fighter, but then never taking the fight. At some point it’ll be useless after Broner moves up to light welterweight, but until then that’s all I see happening.



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