By Scott Gilfoid: IBF light welterweight champion Julius Indongo (22-0, 15 KOs) put on a masterful performance in beating WBA World 140-pound champion Ricky Burns (41-6-1, 14 KOs) by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night in their unification fight at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. The judges scored the fight 120-108, 118-110 and 116-112. The last score didn’t make much sense, as Indongo clearly won all 12 rounds of the fight.
Giving Burns 4 rounds, I do not understand that score at all. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 120-108. There were no rounds at that the 34-year-old Burns came close to winning, as he COMPLETELY dominated from start to finish by the 5’10 ½” Indongo. It wasn’t even slightly close. It was a pure schooling by Indongo. Burns was hurt several times in the fight by hard left hands from Indongo.
In the 10th, Burns ran straight into a hard right hand from Indongo that stunned him badly, causing him to scurry away in retreat mode. Indongo then chased Burns around the ring for much of the remainder of the round. Burns was literally running from Indongo. The white flag might as well have been hoisted up by Burns on the flagpole. That was hard to watch.
The 8th round was all Indongo with him hammering Burns with big shots to the head. Burns tried running from Indongo, but it was no use, as he was able to cut off the ring and land big shots to the body and head.
Burns looked utterly defeated in this round. He took punch after punch, and could do little to stop Indongo from coming forward to land big shots. As the round nearing the end, Burns tried to collect himself by briefly standing his ground in the center of the ring in what looked like a last stand on his part.
Indongo was more than willing to oblige him, as he landed a crunching left hand to the jaw of Burns that knocked him back one foot. Burns then quickly scurried away to get out of the way of Indongo’s other big punches. Burns’ boxing fans at ringside were as quiet as mice because there was nothing to cheer about. Indongo was really giving it to Burns with repeated head and body shots in the 8th round, and there was nothing on earth that he could about it.
After the 8th round ended, Burns’ trainer whispered into his ear something in between rounds. It would have been interesting to know what was being said. My guess is there was possible talk of surrendering to Indongo and just quitting, because the fight was a full sale rout at this point. There was nothing that Burns could do to make the fight competitive, as he was missing everything that he threw.
When Burns did come forward, Indongo was catching him with right hands and straights. Burns was getting pummeled by Indongo, which is why I don’t understand for a second how one judge scored the fight 116-112 and another one 118-110. How do you give Burns any rounds in this fight? It was so one-sided that it probably should have been stopped by the 7th or 8th. Burns looked feeble.
There were 3 slips by Burns in rounds 11 and 12 that could have been scored knockdowns in my opinion. I saw Burns getting hit with punches while rushing forward, and then dropping. In the big scheme of things, it didn’t matter that those slips weren’t scored as knockdowns, but it would have been good just so the scoring for the fight would be accurate than it turned out to be. If those slips had been ruled knockdowns, Burns would have really lost badly.
Indongo was working Burns’ body the entire fight, nailing him with straights left right down the pipe. Indongo must have read by previous columns on Burns, because I was recommending that he go to his body in order to nail him properly. Burns was using all kinds of head movement in his last fight against Kiryl Relikh last October, and that it made it very hard for the Belarusian fighter to hit him cleanly with anything.
I don’t know why Relikh’s trainer Ricky Hatton didn’t have him make adjustments to go after Burn’s body, because that was the obvious thing to do. Indongo was very smart to target Burns’ body and work on it the entire fight. Burns was still moving his head, as if he was going to get hit there, but he was doing it for nothing because Indongo was targeting his body the entire time.
“I feel very proud. I’m very happy,” said Indongo after the fight.
“The better man won,” said Burns afterwards. “He was very awkward. I’ll definitely come again. He had the reach advantage. He was catching me. The better man won tonight,” said Burns about Indongo.
What is Burns blabbering about? Indongo’s reach was just a little bit longer than his by 1 ½” inches. That’s not the reason why Burns was dominated in this fight tonight. Indongo was just the better fighter with superior boxing skills. The results of tonight’s fight were not because of Indongo’s height or reach advantage.
The reason Indongo won is because he had the better hand speed, power and defensive skills than Burns. It wasn’t just one thing. Indongo had the better ring generalship and defensive skills. It was a total slaughter. The judge that scored the fight 116-112 [8 rounds to 4] in favor of Indongo was watching a different fight than the one that I saw. I couldn’t see Burns winning 1 round in the fight. Even if I wanted to give Burns a mercy round, I couldn’t do it because he was totally clowned tonight.
In hindsight, Burns and his promoter Eddie Hearn royally blew it by electing to take the unification fight against Indongo instead of pushing for a title defense against Adrien “The Problem” Broner. If Broner wasn’t available at the time, then Burns should have picked a bottom feeder out from the World Boxing Association’s top 15 rankings, and defended his title against one of them. Fighting Indongo was a dumb, dumb and dumb idea. Burns and Hearn must have seen something in Indongo’s style that made them think he could beat him, because it was not a smart decision on their part to take this fight.
In round 1, Indongo came out fast from his corner with his right hand arm stretched far out in front of him like you sometimes seen from Eastern European fighters. Burns attempted to land some shots, but he couldn’t get close enough to Indongo to hit him with anything. Indongo really teed off on Burns in this round with left hands to the body and right hooks to the head.
Rounds 2 and 3 were even more one-sided than the 1st, as Indongo was landing hard left hands to the body of Burns. Indongo couldn’t miss when he threw body shots. Burns should have used some feints to get Indongo to think twice about throwing his punches, but he failed to do this. Burns has shown in the past to have some good boxing ability, but for some reason he didn’t use it tonight. He fought like someone that had laced up his gloves for the first time in his life. Has Burns forgotten how to fight? His trainer should have been lecturing him in between rounds to start fighting smart instead of giving all the rounds away.
In rounds 4 and 5, Indongo continued to land hard body shots and stinging jabs to the head. Burns landed a right hand to the head of Indongo in the 5th, but then he took off running to keep from getting hit back. It was hilarious watching Burns being run around the ring by Indongo, who looked like he wanted to pay him back in the worst way. Indongo eventually caught up with Burns and blasted away at him with lefts to the head and right hands to the body. That sequence seemed to be Indongo’s way of saying, ‘Don’t even think about trying to hit me.’ Burns did very little after getting worked over by Indongo in that round.
After the fight, Burns didn’t say anything about retirement. He just said he would be back again. I don’t know if Adrien Broner will still be interested in fighting Burns after this loss. That’s the fight that Broner and Burns both wanted, but tonight’s events might have changed that. Broner will look funny now if he goes after Burns rather than Indongo. But honestly, I do not see Broner being able to handle Indongo. This guy looks very, very good. The only fighter in the 140lb division that can possibly beat Indongo is Terence Crawford. That would be a good fight. I think Indongo would give Crawford HUGE problems. Indongo did a better job beating Burns than Crawford did, a much better job.
Other boxing results on tonight’s Indongo vs. Burns card:
Charlie Edwards UD 12 Iain Butcher
Robbie Barrett MD 12 Scotty Cardle
Lawrence Okolie KO 1 Lukasz Rusiewicz
Josh Kelly points 6 Jay Byrne