By SCott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (36-2-1, 11 KO’s) can forget about fighting Raymundo Beltran in an immediate rematch unless his promoter can talk the WBO into letting him bypass his #1 WBO challenger Terence Crawford (22-0, 16 KO’s), as the WBO has reportedly ordered negotiations to take place between Burns and Crawford’s promoters, says Fightnews.com.
They have 30 days to reach an agreement before it goes to purse bids. If you’re Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport, this probably has to be interpreted as really bad news because Crawford is a nightmare opponent for Burns. Heck, he’s a nightmarish opponent for anyone in the 135 lb. division, and doesn’t that the fight will probably be stage in Glasgow, Scotland, the home city of Burns.
It’s probably still possible for Hearn to circumvent the WBO’s ruling if they can somehow get Burns in a title unification bout against one of the other lightweight champions. That might be Burns’ best bet because if he can beat one of the champions like IBF champ Miguel Vazquez or WBA champion Richard Abril, then Burns can vacate the WBO title and avoid a potential one-sided loss to Crawford.
That would be the smart thing for Burns and Hearn to do, but they obviously don’t have a lot of time to try and negotiate a unification fight to avoid Crawford. Another option they have is to give Crawford a step aside payment to pay to get out of the way for a while so that Burns can fight Beltran again. I don’t see that happening though because Hearn would have to open up his piggy bank to find the cash to give to Crawford to get him to get lost for a while. I mean, if this was Golden Boy Promotions, then I could see them doing it because they’ve got deep pockets and could easily make a move like that. But I don’t see it happening with Burns’ promoter making that move.
The the most drastic move for Burns to avoid the Crawford fight would be to take the nuclear option by simply vacating the WBO title and skedaddling away. Don’t laugh. Burns that once before when he was going to have to face Adrien Broner when he was the WBO super featherweight champion and Broner was his mandatory challenger.
If Burns dumps the WBO title, he can then can either move up in weight to fight at light welterweight, which I wouldn’t advise him to do, or he can in line and wait his turn as a challenger for IBF champion Miguel Vazquez. He would seem to be the easiest mark in the lightweight division among the champions. If Burns waits until Adrien Broner vacates his WBC lightweight title, then he can go after that strap, but the problem is there’s a whole bunch of guys in front of him and it might take a while to get a shot at the belt unless Hearn can lure them over to the UK to let Burns get a shot at the title by enticing them with potential pay-per-view money.
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