By Scott Gilfoid: After his horrible performance last night in beating Alexandre Lepelley (17-2-1, 3 KOs) by an unimpressive 8 round decision, Ricky Burns (37-4-1, 11 KOs) says he has some decisions to make about whether he should move back down to lightweight to try and make the best of things in that weight class.

What we saw last night from Burns in his 8 round victory over Lepelley is that Burns doesn’t have the size to be fighting in the light welterweight division.

While some boxers are able to put muscle weight on and move up in weight, Burns isn’t one of them. All the weight that Burns put appeared to be around his midsection. In other words, Burns ate his way to light welterweight with the weight that he put on being in the form fat that he stored around his belly area.

Some of the rounds I think I boxed alright,” said Burns. “He was very tough and he could take a good shot, at the end of the fourth round my hands were starting to get sore. I moved up to light-welterweight but I’ve got a few big decisions to make over the next couple of weeks about that but I’m just glad to get back with a win.”

The magical question is what can Burns do at 135? His performance against Lepelley was Burns’ 5th straight poor performance, and I think Burns is kidding himself if he thinks he’s going to be able to rejuvenate his career in that weight class.

You can make a strong argument that Burns career has nosedived since he left promoter Frank Warren last year and signed with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport. Warren had Burns’ career going really well. Burns last fight with Warren was his 4th round knockout win over Kevin Mitchell in September of 2012.

After that, Burns signed with Hearn in early 2013, and that’s when Burns’ back luck streak of fights took place against Jose Gonzales, Raymundo Beltran, Terence Crawford, Dejan Zlaticanin and Lepelley. I wonder what would have happened with Burns had he stayed with Warren. He was doing a good job of match-making for him, and it’s quite possible he would have made the right moves to keep Burns winning.