At the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, on Friday night, Scotland?s Ricky Burns retained his world title despite a gallant attempt to wrestle it from his grasp by the challenger Kiryl Relikh.
Relikh arrived in Glasgow with a record that read 21-0 with 19 of those wins coming by way of stoppage. However, the 26-year-old hadn?t gotten the rounds in the bank that Burns has accumulated over the years.
Despite being cheered on by a patriotic crowd, it was the challenger that started the brighter, picking off Burns with flurries of punches with Burns struggling to find his range.
As the rounds progressed Burns came more and more into the fight but it was hard to see whose punches were landing and whose were being blocked.
Relikh may have been producing flurries of punches but Burns was landing the more eye-catching shots.
As the fight entered the middle rounds it looked as if Burns was starting to edge the verdict but the patriotic home crowd were stunned when in rounds ten an eleven Relikh, who had never gone past six rounds, decided to up the pace.
At one stage Burns looked troubled and the prospect of losing his title looked on, but the Scotsman held on and probably shaded the last round.
As the two fighters waited for the verdict to be announced, the general consensus of opinion was that the fight had been a close one.
However, the judges were on a different wavelength and Burns received the verdict on all three judge?s cards by margins of 118-110, 116-112 and 116-112.
Talking about the fight afterwards, Burns remarked,
‘Boy, he could whack.
‘There were a couple of times when he shook me with body shots and head shots, but I managed to hide it from him and I stuck to my tactics and stayed on my bike.
‘Fair play to him, he stuck at it for the full 12 rounds.
‘He was still in there at the end. He’ll definitely come again, he’s a good fighter.’
For Burns there is talk of a big-fight in the US against Adrien Broner but, on the evidence of the challenge he put up, 26-year-old Relikh will surely work his way towards another world title fight.
Burns Retains WBA super-lightweight title
