Ricky Burns (31-4-1, 11 KOs) will be hunting for his 3rd division world title next year at light welterweight. He’s given up on the idea of saying at 135 due to the problems he’s been having in making weight for the class.
Burns and his manager Alex Morrison feel that a move up to light welterweight will result in Burns having the strength and energy that has recently abandoned him. Burns is scheduled to fight for the first time at 140 on October 4th in Leeds.
If everything goes alright in this fight, then plan on fighting for a world title in 2015 against one of the 140 pound champions.
Burns lost his WBO lightweight title last year to Terence Crawford by a 12 round unanimous decision defeat. It was expected that Burns would lose the fight to Crawford because he’s a fighter with amazing skills and good power. But what wasn’t expected was Burns getting beaten in his next fight to fringe contender DeJab Zlaticanin by a 12 round decision last June.
This was supposed to have been a tune-up confidence builder type of fight for Burns, but instead he got dropped hard in the 1st round by a big left hook by Zlaticanin. Burns then mostly took one-way punishment for the remainder of the fight. Burns’ promoter Eddie Hearn spoke of wanting to bring him back to the domestic level for a while so that he could rebuild his confidence, but it’s unclear if that’s going to be happening.
“Ricky was finding it increasingly harder to make the weight,” Morrison said to BBC Scotland. “He was virtually eating nothing before the weigh in and I think that had a lot to do with his last three performances. He is just looking forward to October and fighting at the new weight. We’re planning on him winning a third world title.”
The weight could have been a problem for Burns, as Morrison said. But it could also be that Burns is getting up there in age at 31 and he’s facing younger lions now with better power than him. Burns never had great power to begin with, but now his lack of power is causing him problems because it’s forcing him to go the full distance against quality guys.
If Burns continues to struggle even after moving up in weight to 140, then Morrison is going to need to try and figure out what he wants to do with him.