CHAMPION RICKY THE RESURRECTION MAN

AFTER the freefall came a brilliant resurrection and a piece of history. Now Ricky Burns wants another crack at the man who nearly wrecked his career. It has been a shade more than two years since Burns (below) lost his lightweight world title to Terence Crawford in what was the first of three defeats in four fights. In that desperate run, which stretched right up to last May, he was also declared bankrupt, swapped trainers and switched from Glasgow to Essex. On Saturday, as he clubbed Michele di Rocco into an eighth-round stoppage to win the vacant WBA light-welterweight belt, one of Britain’s most likeable fighters got off the road to nowhere. With it, he became Scotland’s first three-weight world champion and only the third to do so in the history of British boxing. At the age of 33, he is now considering options against the likes of Crawford and Adrien Broner. ‘Who would have thought a year ago that I would be here, a world champion again?’ Burns said. ‘There are some big fights out there for me. I want the top names. I will fight anybody.’ Burns’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, is considering options to get him back in action in September or October. Burns said: ‘I have had a bit of a bad run in the last couple of years. When things were happening at the time I was trying to say it wasn’t bothering me but it was. ‘Things were looking good in training but it was affecting my performances on fight night. There was never anything in me that wanted to chuck it all in. ‘My trainer Tony Sims knew I always gave it 100 per cent in the gym but I felt in the last few fights it wasn’t clicking, something was missing. ‘But things have started to come together. The camp went perfect, the sparring was good and the weight was good. I am so happy with the performance.’ To that end, the fight could not have gone much better. Burns was helped that the rankings pitted him against an Italian with zero history of fighting world-level opposition and the gulf was obvious. He dominated Di Rocco with his jab for two rounds, dropped him once at the end of the third and finished him in the eighth. ‘I was surprised how easy it was,’ Burns said.