By Scott Gilfoid: The British boxing fans are really working up a lather at the mouth about today’s announcement about a September 22nd fight between WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns (34-2, 9 KO’s) and Kevin Mitchell (33-1, 24 KO’s) in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. I don’t see what’s so special about this fight other than it being two years too late.

I’m not one of those people who live by the motto “Better late than never,” because some things have a past due date to where you don’t want to touch them. Frankly, I see the Burns-Mitchell as being one of those things. The fight should have taken place back in 2010 before Mitchell spanked by Michael Katsidis in a a 3rd round blowout defeat. Since being destroyed by Katsidis, who I consider a very, very average fighter, Mitchell has only fought twice against John Murray and Felix Lora.

To be sure, Mitchell won both fights, but those aren’t exactly the most dangerous fighters either. Mitchell needed to fight Katsidis again to avenge his loss. Sadly, he’s not done that. Mitchell needed to fight Adrien Broner, Miguel Vazquez, Antonio DeMarco, Takashi Uchiyama, Juan Carlos Salgado or Takahiro Aoh to prove himself. Unfortunately, Mitchell hasn’t done that. So, I don’t see the Burns vs. Mitchell fight being even one-tenth of the fight it could have and should have been had Mitchell taken the fight years ago and/or at least proven himself against these top fighters. Why hasn’t Mitchell fought these guys? I don’t know but it is kind of telling that he’d rather fight the unknown Lora and the domestic level Murray rather than those top fighters.

Burns isn’t much better in terms of competition. He recently was given the WBO title by the World Boxing Organization, and instead of taking on Miguel Vazquez or Antonio DeMarco, he chose Paulus Moses to defend his title against. When Burns was the WBO super featherweight champion, he fought a string of largely less than impressive opposition, and when it came time for Burns to finally face a good opponent in Adrien Broner, Burns suddenly vacated his WBO strap and moved up in weight to the lightweight division. Why did Burns do that? Was the writing on the wall at that time? I think Broner would have blown Burns out in one or two rounds, so maybe it’s best that Burns moved up in weight rather than taking a beating from Broner.

I just see the Burns-Mitchell fight as being a bout between a rusty fighter in Mitchell who hasn’t done much to rebuild his career after the Katsidis loss going up against a paper champion who had one opportunity to face a superb fighter in Broner, but instead moved up in weight instead of facing him. I see this fight as a domestic level fight rather than a world title fight. There are world champions and then there are title holders. I see Burns as a title holder.