By William Mackay: This Saturday’s nights card at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England will be stacked from top to bottom with interesting fights. Lightweights John Murray will be facing a ring rusty Kevin Mitchell, WBO super featherweight champion Ricky Burns defends his tittle against former champion Nicky Cook, welterweight prospect Frankie Gavid fights Curtis Woodhouse and light heavyweight puncher Tony Bellew takes on Ovil McKenzie in a fight that will almost surely end up as a huge slugfest.
Burns, 28, will be making his third defense of his World Boxing Organization title. Burns’ promoter Frank Warren said this about the Burns-Cook fight at the Evening Times: “This is a fight that Ricky not only has to in but one he must win in decisive fashion. His past two defenses against Andreas Evensen and Joseph Laryea have been well received but we need Ricky to come down to Liverpool on Saturday night and let it go.”
What Burns really needs is to face better opposition. No offense to Evensen and Laryea, but Burns has got to face better known opposition than that if he wants to get the boxing public’s attention. To be sure, matching Burns against little known guys who aren’t much of a threat will keep the belt in his possession for longer, but at the cost of having Burns be completely ignored by fans. What Burns needs, rather than facing non top tier fighters like Cook, is to take on guys like Adrien Broner, Jason Litzau, and Roman Martinez. I realize that Burns has already beaten Martinez, but the fight was close enough to where he really needed to fight him again. I’d prefer that Burns fight Broner, but if he’s not available, Martinez is the next best thing.
Unbeaten light heavyweight Tony Bellew (15-0, 10 KO’s) takes on Ovil McKenzie (18-10, 7 KO’s) in a rematch. They fought last year in December and that was an exciting fight. Bellew was knocked down in the first two rounds from huge fight hands from McKenzie but got up both times and came back to knock McKenzie down in the 8th to get a stoppage. Bellow should win this fight but you have to wonder about his chin, because McKenzie doesn’t hit as hard as some of the other top light heavyweights in the division. If Bellew is having problems taking McKenzie’s shots then it’s likely that Bellew won’t go very far.
The bout between unbeaten John Murray (31-0, 18 KO’s) and Kevin Mitchell (31-1, 23 KO’s) could be an interesting one depending on what kind of condition that Mitchell comes into the fight and whether his chin holds up under the pounding from Murray. Mitchell hasn’t fought in over a year and caved in quickly in his last fight against Michael Katsidis last year in a 3rd round knockout in May 2010. Mitchell fell to pieces after getting hurt by Katsidis and turned his back to Katisids to avoid taking punishment when Katsidis was putting the stop to him. If the Murray vs. Mitchell fight had come before the Katsidis bout, I would be picking Mitchell to win this fight. However, Mitchell hasn’t fought for a long time and he’s coming into this fight without any kind of tune up bout, which he badly needs.
Undefeated welterweight prospect Frankie Gavin (10-0, 8 KO’s) faces Curtis Woodhouse (15-2, 10 KO’s) in a 12 round bout. This could be a dangerous fight for Gavin because Woodhouse, if nothing else, can punch and Gavin is there to be hit. Gavin likes to slug but isn’t particularly powerful or fast. Woodhouse has a puncher’s chance of winning this fight if he can connect with some of his bombs.