By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2-1, 11 KO’s) is still recovering from the broken jaw he suffered in his 12 round draw against Raymundo Beltran last month in Glasgow, Scotland.
Burns says he thinks his jaw will be healed by February of next year, and he’s okay with fighting Beltran again in a rematch or his mandatory challenger Terrence Crawford. It’ll be up to his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport whether he faces either of those guys for his next bout.
There’s a possibility that Burns’ jaw still won’t be fully healed even by February because that’s only 5 months and that’s a not a long time for someone with a serious jaw injury. It’s quite possible that Burns might not be ready to fight until further along in the year.
In that case it’ll be interesting to see if the World Boxing Organization strips him and gives him the old Emeritus status that the WBC likes to use so that Beltran and Crawford and fight it out for the vacant WBO title. I hope so because it’s terrible to have injured champions sitting on a belt for ages without defending it.
Burns said to Sky Sports “I was talking to Eddie; we are hoping it’s going to be January or February time but we’ll know a bit more over the next few weeks. I’m up to fighting anybody and Terence Crawford is my mandatory challenger. Beltran does deserve a rematch. Everyone who knows me knows that wasn’t me from the second round. I was in survival mode.”
It’s kind of sad to see Burns making excuses for him getting whipped by Beltran. Believe me, that was the real Burns in there with Beltran. That’s exactly how Burns fought against other opponents with the clinching and covering up. I saw the same thing in his fights against Michael Katsidis, Jose Gonzalez, and Paulus Moses.
The judges may have given Burns a draw in the Beltran fight, but the entire world sees it as a robbery and a loss for Burns. That wasn’t a draw; that was a victory for Beltran and a very impressive performance.
There’s really not much Burns could do other than cover up and hold. He doesn’t have the power to mix it up with Beltran, and if he tries to slug with him in their rematch, if there is a rematch, then Burns is going to be getting hit with a lot of hard left hooks on his jaw.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he suffers another broken jaw. I would hope that Burns wouldn’t blame his poor performance in that fight on another broken jaw because at some point Burns is going to have to come to terms with the reality that he’s facing more talented fighters than himself. I mean, he would have lost the fight against Jose Gonzalez had he not tired out and quit on his stool, and he definitely should have lost the fight to Beltran.
I don’t think for a second that Hearn will put Burns back in with Beltran, and I have no faith that he’ll put Burns in with Crawford. Like I said before, Hearn will probably have Burns fight a bottom feeder in his next fight by saying that he needs a tune-up to test his jaw out. And then after that, Hearn will put Burns in a unification bout against IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez.
If Burns wins that fight, then I see him vacating his title and moving up to 140 rather than facing Crawford and would likely be an embarrassingly one-sided loss to the talented fighter.
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