A stunning thirst to succeed means you can never write off Ricky
IF you type into any search engine the phrase ‘if at first you don’t succeed’ a picture of Ricky Burns pops up.
We talked about this with Anthony Crolla but this fella patented it. When I saw him lose against Alex Arthur for the British and Commonwealth super-featherweight title 11 years ago, I thought he had reached his level. That view was confirmed three fights later in another failed crack at the British title against Carl Johanneson. Scroll forward three years and he is the WBO super-featherweight champion after beating Roman Martinez on an unforgettable night in Glasgow. Again I thought the performance four years back against Raymundo Beltran, though somehow scored a draw, in defence of his WBO lightweight title spelled the beginning of the end. Three defeats in his next four outings seemed to confirm it, yet here he is again at superlightweight defending his title as the only threedivision champion in Scottish history. The man has some level of fortitude, though it is tricky to know where that leaves him against Julius Indongo in tonight’s WBO, WBA and IBO super-lightweight unification bout. Indongo is 34. He was not thought to be anything special until he travelled to Russia to fight Eduard Troyanovsky in what was his first fight out of Namibia. Troyanovsky had a stellar amateur career, flattened everybody and was unbeaten as a pro. Indongo (right), a southpaw, turns up and throws a long, backhand left and totally turned his lights out. It touched him just below the chin. It looked like nothing but was everything. Maybe Indongo is better than his record suggests. Having hardly fought outside Namibia it is difficult to assess the quality of opposition. That could have been his break-out fight or it could be that he got lucky. We won’t know until he has been in the ring with Burns. Similarly there we are still to determine where Burns is. He has been a great fighter, and is a great guy for whom I have a deal of respect. Those defeats against Terrence Crawford, Dejan Zlaticanin and Omar Figueroa looked telling to me. He was fortunate to get past Kiryl Relikh in his last fight. Relikh hurt him a couple of times but switched off and Burns old-manned him. Burns has not looked as effective at super-lightweight. Yet he manages to win. He trains hard, spars middleweights and deserves to succeed. I hope he does, but this is not an easy fight to pick. My guess is Indongo is dangerous early, Burns battens down the hatches before coming through on points, or even stops him. Alternatively, Indongo wins early. You decide.