By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says he plans on taking former two-weight world champ Ricky Burns (36-4-1, 11 KO’s) backwards a class by putting him in against a domestic level foe for his next fight later this year in order to try and get the 31-year-old Burns’ confidence back before bringing him back to the world level.
Hearn feels that if he can get at least one victory under Burns’ belt against domestic level guy, he can then put him back in against a world class opponent along the level of someone like Dejan Zlaticanin before looking to get him world title shot. Hearn said that Burns was crying up a storm after his fight with Zlaticanin.
Burns was beaten by a 12 round split decision by Zlaticanin last Friday night at the Braehead Arena, Glasgow, in Scotland, United Kingdom. Hearn says that he thinks the fight could have gone either way, and that if you could erase what happened to Burns in the first 4 rounds, he would have easily won the fight. Unfortunately, you can’t erase what happened in the first 4 rounds of the fight, and it didn’t look like a 50-50 fight. It just looked like Burns couldn’t handle the hard left hooks that Zlaticanin kept nailing him with all night long.
“I thought Burns won the last 6 rounds of the fight,” Hearn said to IFL TV.
The last 6 rounds? I think Hearn needs to have a cup of coffee and watch the fight on replay and see how awful Burns looked.
Each time Burns would get his confidence up and would put a few decent shots together, Zlaticanin would nail him with a big left hook to the head that would send Burns scurrying backwards. It looked doubly bad with Burns getting tagged by huge shots, and then retreating to the ropes in the same pattern each time. If he had just stood his ground, it wouldn’t have looked as bad.
“I think we need to take him [Burns] away from Scotland for his next fight, because every time he fights there is so much pressure and expectations,” Hearn said via skysports.com. “He is not delivering in the ring. I don’t know what it is. Take the first four rounds away, I thought he [Burns] won the fight quite comfortably.”
Oh boy, Hearn is really grasping for straws by thinking that Burns is struggling because he’s fighting in front of his home crowd. Heck, the only reason Burns has had any success in some of his recent fights is because of the cheering from his fans. When he’s being cheered, Burns is capable, for brief periods, to fight like he used to when he was younger. But when the fans stop cheering, Burns just looks like someone who is being chased by ghosts. He’s a completely different fighter since his gift 12 round draw against Raymundo Beltran from last year in September.
That fight took something out of Burns and has him fighting like he’s afraid of his own shadow. He doesn’t stay in the center of the ring, and he retreats each time he’s met with any kind of resistance. That wasn’t how Burns used to fight.
Hearn can take Burns and put him in London, and he’s still going to struggle if he puts him in with a decent opponent. You can bring Burns to the United States, and he’ll be no better off if his first instinct is to dash backwards to the ropes each time he takes a head shot.
“His [Burns] next fight will be a tough domestic fight,” Hearn said. “He was in the dressing room crying his eyes out.”
If Hearn puts Burns in with someone like Derry Mathews, Anthony Crolla, Kevin Mitchell or even John Murray, I see him losing to pretty much all of those guys. They all hit harder and they stay in the pocket when hit. If Burns is going to run from them after getting hit, they’ll chase him down like a dog chasing a fleeing cat. It’ll be just as bad for Burns as it was last night with him getting beaten by the little known fringe contender Zlaticanin.
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