Ricky Burns hoping Josh King fight leads to world title shot

By Boxing News - 10/12/2015 - Comments

Omar Figueroa vs Ricky BurnsBy Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (38-5-1, 12 KOs) is hoping that a win over #10 WBO lightweight contender Josh King (20-3, 9 KOs) next month on November 7th will lead him to a world title shot to help revive his floundering career.

Burns and the little known King will be fighting for the vacant WBO Inter-Continental lightweight title at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. The Burns-King fight will be on the Callum Smith vs. Rocky Fielding card, which is promoted by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Sport.

Burns will likely get another world title fight just by being with Hearn, but I don’t see it making any difference. I mean, the talent just isn’t there with Burns. Heck, he could get 100 world title shots at this point, and he’d likely get whipped every time. If Hearn wants to put Burns in title fights after title fights, he can do it if the sanctioning bodies are good with it.

I don’t think Burns will win against any of the champions. Right now, Burns isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies, so it’s not even a question of whether he can get a world title fight. If he beats the 30-year-old King, then he’ll at least be given a bottom ranking by one or more of the sanctioning bodies. But Burns just isn’t a good fighter in my view.

Burns needs to lose some of that baby fat and move back down to super featherweight, because he’s not going to beat anyone at lightweight. He was already beaten by Ray Beltran with his gift draw in 2013 in Glasgow, and beaten by Crawford and Dejan Zlaticanin. It’s forlorn at this point.

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The 32-year-old Burns has lost 3 out of his last 5 fights, and if you ask me, I’d say he’s pretty much a shot fighter. If he’s not shot, then the lightweight division has simply gotten too good for a limited fighter like him to do much. Yeah, Burns won world titles in two divisions in the past, but he was never facing anyone that you can call a good fighter during those years.

Adrien Broner tried to get Burns into the ring, and he couldn’t get the fight made. What’s really sad is that instead of taking the Broner fight and making big bank, Burns wound up losing his WBO lightweight title to Terence Crawford in March 2014. A fight against Broner would have likely given Burns a much bigger payday if he had taken it when it was being offered.

“This is my first championship fight at 135lbs since June 2014 and I can’t wait to put myself back in contention for a World title,” said Burns. “The [Omar] Figueroa fight was tough at 141lbs but I feel like I boxed well and I think it’s given me plenty of confidence going into this one.”

Some boxing fans feel that Burns rejuvenated himself with his 12 round decision loss to Figueroa in 2014 in a fight televised on Premier Boxing Champions, but I don’t think so. Burns was clinching like a mad man in that fight, and he should have been disqualified for all his blatant holding. Burns was lucky the referee only had two points deducted for holding in rounds 8 and 11. If I’d been the referee, I would have had the fight stopped because Burns couldn’t stop with the grabbing. It was so ugly to watch, and just so, so sad to see Burns reduced to holding onto Figueroa all night to try and keep him from throwing punches.

“It’s a great time for the division in Britain and I’m right in the mix,” Burns said. “Obviously I’d like to win my old belt back in this fight will give me a great ranking with the WBO but I would fight anyone in the country or the World and I’m excited to be in a great fight on November 7.”

Burns’ old WBO lightweight title is now held by Terry Flanagan. I can’t see Burns beating that guy, although it would be interesting to see him at least try and beat him. While I do think Flanagan is a paper champion, I see him being more than good enough to beat Burns. The guys that Flanagan should be worried about are talents like Rances Barthlemy and Yuriorkis Gamboa. Those guys would likely do a number on him.

Burns is coming off of a 5th round stoppage win over Prince Ofotsu last August. He was matched up against an obscure guy in order to stop his losing. Yeah, Burns won, but look who Hearn had to match him against in order for him to stop with the losing.

King has won his last 8 fights since losing to Jack Asis (22-18-4) by a 1st round knockout in 2011. King never avenged the loss to Asis, and all of his wins since then have come against fighters with poor records.



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