Broner: Burns doesn’t want to fight me; he’s just milking the sport

By Boxing News - 12/28/2012 - Comments

broner62By Scott Gilfoid: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (25-0, 21 KO’s) is disappointed but not surprised that WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (35-2, 10 KO’s) chose not to fight him on February 16th, as Broner thinks that Burns is just looking to make money from the sport and not fight the best guys.

Broner said to Fighthype.com “He don’t want to fight me…He’s trying to milk the game. He knows after he fights me, he’s not going to be s***.”

Burns will still be considered a good fighter if he were to face Broner and get knocked out, but he’d be perceived a little bit different after the fight that’s for sure. However, he might as well fight Broner because a lot of boxing fans see him as ducking Broner for turning the fight.

I don’t know about you, but to me that pretty much counts as a loss by forfeit for Burns. This was the second time that Burns had the opportunity to fight Broner, and for the second time he failed to step up to the plate.

So is Burns just trying to “Milk” the sport like Broner is talking about by taking on lesser opposition instead of the very best? I don’t know but it doesn’t make him look good that he didn’t agree to fight Broner when the fight was offered to him.

Broner says he’s going to stay at lightweight for a while and Burns is still going to be the one that he wants to defeat before he eventually moves up in weight to go after bigger names. Broner isn’t in a big hurray to move up to light welterweight and welterweight despite the fact that’s where all the money fights are at.
Broner expects to be fighting on pay per view by next year.

If so, he’s going to have to be fighting at least at light welterweight because he’s not going to be able to market a fight between him and a lightweight. Burns is an unknown in the U.S, so even a fight against him won’t register with the boxing public. Broner wants to fight light welterweight Brandon Rios, but that’s not going to happen because he fights for Top Rank, and Bob Arum isn’t going to let Rios get beaten by Broner before Rios faces Manny Pacquiao.



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