By Scott Gilfoid: If WBA World light welterweight champion Ricky Burns (40-5-1, 14 KOs) can get past his dangerous mandatory challenger Kiryl Relikh (21-0, 19 KOs) in their fight next month on October 7, then a fight between Burns and former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) is possible in December in the United States.
Broner, 27, recently sent a Tweet of encouragement to the 33-year-old Burns, saying “Go out and get the job done and then me and him are going at it,” about his upcoming fight against the hard hitting 26-year-old Relikh for their fight at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. Burns doesn’t want to look past the fighter from Belarus Relikh, because he realizes how tough this fight potentially will be.
Burns has turned his sagging career around in his last three fights against Michele Di Rocco, Josh King and Prince Ofotsu in winning all three fights to capture the vacant WBA 140lb title. Before those wins, Burns had lost three out of his last five fights with a controversial draw against Raymundo Beltran. You can argue that Burns lost the fight to Beltran, BADLY. I only gave Burns two rounds out of the twelve, because stopped punching after suffering a broken jaw in the 2nd round. For the last 10 rounds of the bout, Burns did little more than wrestle and clinch. The fight took place in Burns’ home city of Glasgow. I don’t think Burns has turned his career around in the real sense.
I don’t think Burns has found the fountain of youth. I believe it’s more of a case of Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn matching him against three beatable opponents in Di Rocco, Ofotsu and King. The World Boxing Association also made it very, very easy for Burns to win a world title by having Di Rocco as the guy he fought for the vacant WBA title rather than a more difficult contender like Rances Barthlemy, John Molina Jr., Antonio Orozco, Adrian Granados, or Frankie Gomez. Don’t ask me why the WBA ranked Di Rocco at No.1 at the time that Burns fought him, because I don’t understand that at all. It was weird ranking as I’m concerned, because I didn’t rate Di Rocco as even a top 15 contender. I saw him as a bottom 100 contender, and even that ranking was generous for me.
Burns said to STV News:
“I don’t really like looking beyond opponents but I know that fight has been talked about at super-featherweight, lightweight and now light-welterweight. There were a few different names mentioned, all top names that could happen in America. But Kyril has got my full attention right now and it’s going to be a tough fight. A trip out to Vegas would be nice but we need to get by the October 7 fight first.”
It’s definitely smart that Burns isn’t looking past Relikh, considering that this guy has the punching power to put Burns down for the count if he doesn’t wind up holding him all night long. Burns hasn’t beaten anyone good in many hears, and he’s getting up there in age at 33. I think Relikh could wind up doing a number on Burns like Dejan Zlaticanin did back in 2014 in beating him by a 12 round split decision.
I thought that fight was a clear win for Zlaticanin, and yet one judge (John Keane) had Burns winning by a 115-113 score, and the other two head the fight close at 115-113 in favor or Zlaticanin. Relikh has the kind of punching power to give Burns nightmares. I think Relikh has the youth to trouble Burns, and the power needed to take the judges out of the equation to turn them into spectators on the night.
There was talk of Broner and Burns fighting each other five years ago when he was the WBO super featherweight champion and Broner his #1 WBO challenger. Instead, Burns vacated his WBO title and moved up to lightweight to snatch the WBO title in that weight class. Burns eventually lost the title three years later in a defeat at the hands of Crawford.
Broner wanted to fight Burns from 2011 to 2014, but Burns’ management didn’t make the fight for some reason. In hindsight, I think it was a mistake not to take the fight, because the money that Burns would have made against Broner likely would have far surpassed the money Burns made against Terence Crawford in 2014. Burns lost his WBO title to Crawford by a 12 round decision.
I can’t see Burns beating Broner. He doesn’t have the punching power or the hand speed to win that fight, and I suspect he knows that. It might not matter though, because I see Burns losing his fight against Relikh.
Broner has a two-fight winning streak right now with recent victories over Ashley Theophane and Khabib Allakhverdiev. The win over Theophane took place last April. Broner has been out of the ring ever since. He was mentioned recently as a potential opponent for WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia, but that fight doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Broner was beaten by Shawn Porter last year by a 12 round unanimous decision.