By Scott Gilfoid: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to match the winner of the September 7th fight between WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2, 11 KO’s) and challenger Raymundo Beltran (28-6, 17 KO’s) against the #1 WBO challenger Terence Crawford (21-0, 16 KO’s) at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Arum sees the Beltran-Burns fight as a toss-up fight, and he really likes his guy Beltran in this fight. The main advantage Arum sees Burns having in this fight is that it’ll be taking place in Burns’ home country of Scotland.
Arum said to Wealth TV “I think this is a 50-50 fight. There’s an advantage of Ricky Burns fighting on his home turf, but I have a guy that believes in himself in Beltran. The winner of this fight in Madison Square Garden against [Terence] Crawford as part of a big doubleheader.”
I think Arum is going to need to do a ton of convincing of Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn that he should take the fight with Crawford, because Hearn is talking about wanting to match Burns up in a unification fight if he gets past Beltran.
There’s not much Arum will be able to do about it if Hearn goes that route, because with the fight being a unification match, the World Boxing Organization will likely grant Hearn and Burns to bypass his title defense against his mandatory challenger Crawford.
I can’t see Hearn and Burns ever agreeing to fight a talent like Crawford. I can picture a scenario where Burns has to be dragged into the ring kicking and screaming in order to make this fight happen.
I think we’re going to need a Burns title vacating watch, because as soon as Burns has no more wriggle run to avoid the fight with Crawford, I can see Burns opting to vacate his WBO title rather than facing Crawford and taking a worse beating than he did in his recent fight with Jose Gonzalez.
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