Win boosts Burns’ Vegas bargaining power
DON’T book your flight to Las Vegas just yet. Because the asking price for Ricky Burns to fight Adrien Broner in the desert around December time just went up.
The flashy former four-weight world champion from Cincinnati was a no-show in Glasgow on Friday night as the 33-year-old from Coatbridge produced a typically stoic performance to keep hold of his WBA super-lightweight belt by a unanimous, if contentious, points decision against the big-hitting Kiryl Relikh.
While Eddie Hearn, Burns’ promoter, is confident of getting a deal done with Broner’s team, and would back his man to win the fight, he also said the Scot should now command a greater share of the prize purse. A unification rematch with reigning WBC, WBO and Ring Magazine champion Terence Crawford, against whom Burns lost in a points decision in Glasgow in 2014, is another possibility.
Burns, a couple of years on from his well-documented financial problems, now finds himself in the enviable position where the richest fighters in the globe are queuing up to try to take his belt.
“I would fancy a Vegas trip,” Hearn said. “I am glad Ricky took this fight, because you can’t really always rely on Adrien Broner. He was supposed to be here tonight, but I saw last night on social media that he was in some club or other.
“The Broner fight is a great fight for Ricky. He deserves that big fight in America and I think he would win as well. But there are a few things to tinker with on the deal, we want some more money. A lot of people came on, Broner, Crawford came on, people want a crack at this belt.
“We are very confident [that we can get the Broner deal done] but there might be another fight that comes up. Straight after the fight you get three or four texts from promoters saying, ‘Good win. Let’s talk on Monday’.
“Ricky is in a great position, he is world champion. If he is a challenger we would be scratching around, looking to fight a champion. They can come and get the belt, but if they want a shot they have to pay for it. Especially at this stage of his career. Who knows how many fights he has left? But he is like Benjamin Button, or something like that.”
While Relikh’s promoter criticised the scoring of the fight – it was certainly far closer than the 118-110 awarded by Venezuelan judge Raul Caiz Snr, with Jesus Cova and Terry O’Conner making it 116-112. Burns, Scotland’s first three-weight world champion, left the SSE Hydro to the acclaim of the 6,000 crowd. However, he couldn’t hear much of it. Typically for a man who in one bout carried on for 10 rounds with a broken jaw, the Scot made light of the fact that one of Relikh’s punches early in the fight had perforated his eardrum.
Burns said. “I can still hear the ringing and the jaw is a wee bit tender, but it’s nothing major.”
Burns has fought in the United States before, in Texas, but his only previous visits to Las Vegas have been for holidays and to attend a Garth Brooks concert. He would love to return to go back to Nevada resort and would be keen to turn the trip into a family break too. “I have fought in Texas but I have been to Vegas a few times on holiday and fighting there is something I have always wanted to do,” Burns said. “I would love to box over there in one of the big hotels and get the chance to stay a couple of weeks and get a holiday out of it. It would be something else to tick off my list.”