No unification fight for Burns

Ricky Burns dreams of a unification fight with Mzonke Fana look to be over. Fana is scheduled to fight Argenis Mendez on June 11. Fana's promoter is citing an unwillingness from Burns promoter to make the fight.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=6296946

What an awful division.

bloody frank warren and tight fisted promoters

It is very poor if I was Warren would be offering Roman Martinez a rematch or even Adrian Broehner a title shot could see both of them coming to Glasgow. Takashi Uchiyama and Takahiro Ao are the other 2 champs but between them they have had nearly 40 fights and only 1 of them have been outside of Japan. Probably end up fighting Fegatilli who beat Foster Jnr.

Theres no real rush for Burns. I would have been surprised if the unification fight happened. I would expect a couple more soft defences before they go for broke.

Frank is quite happy to milk the title with defences in Scotland. Division is weak outside of the champions so Burns could have a Steve robinson style run.

It's not really milking the title for much though is it? Noone buys these opponents. He's fighting a half full 4k capacity Braehead Arena, he's not a ticket seller, I bet its hard to get opponents that make money. Giving it over to another promoter may not be a bad idea if it boosts his profile/standing.

The soft defences have dampened the buzz that surrounded Burns when he won the title. He is struggling to sell 3000 tickets for fights. He needs match ups that excite the public. Martinez rematch would do that and Adrian Broehner would as well.

I think the priority is give Burns matches he can win at present.

To be fair, there were some potentially good domestic fights that got scuppered for him and the division isnt blessed with stand out names that will draw.

Foster Jnr and Appelby would have stirred up interest and I am sure the intention was to make fights with these guys had they managed to win.

He is handling Burns in a similar fashion to Hatton in his WBU days.

manos de piedra wrote:I think the priority is give Burns matches he can win at present.

To be fair, there were some potentially good domestic fights that got scuppered for him and the division isnt blessed with stand out names that will draw.

Foster Jnr and Appelby would have stirred up interest and I am sure the intention was to make fights with these guys had they managed to win.

He is handling Burns in a similar fashion to Hatton in his WBU days.

Problem with domestic opponents is that many people then find it galling to hear it being called a WORLD title fight.

Stevie Smith (son of Darkie) wasn't good enough to win the British LW strap yet a few months and a couple of added pounds later we were expected to believe he was worthy of a shot at Hatton's "world" title.

So Warren discussed making a massive unification fights for one of his WBO champions before failing to deliver, say it ain't so. A man could lose his faith in human nature, you'll be telling me next D4 is not very even handed in his appraisal of Manny

DAVE667 wrote:

manos de piedra wrote:I think the priority is give Burns matches he can win at present.

To be fair, there were some potentially good domestic fights that got scuppered for him and the division isnt blessed with stand out names that will draw.

Foster Jnr and Appelby would have stirred up interest and I am sure the intention was to make fights with these guys had they managed to win.

He is handling Burns in a similar fashion to Hatton in his WBU days.

Problem with domestic opponents is that many people then find it galling to hear it being called a WORLD title fight.

Stevie Smith (son of Darkie) wasn't good enough to win the British LW strap yet a few months and a couple of added pounds later we were expected to believe he was worthy of a shot at Hatton's "world" title.

And Darkie thought he was entitled to a shot at Micky Vann also.