Tonight, at the Hydro in Glasgow Ricky Burns will be defending his WBA super-lightweight title against Kiryl Relikh.
For Burns it will be the first defence of his world title, the third world title he has held at various weights.
Going into the fight Burns is the more experienced fighter, the 33-year-old is set to have his 49th outing and has 349 rounds in the bank.
His opponent on the other hand, the 26-year-old Relikh, has only fought 21 times and has accumulated a mere 61 rounds, although it should be pointed out those 21 fights have produced 19 knockouts.
If Burns can get past the challenge Relikh presents then there is talk of a Las Vegas bout against Adrien Broner.
But, ahead of the world title fight tonight, Burns promoter, Eddie Hearn, has remarked to the media about the challenge Burns faces, with the promoter commenting,
‘He is a consummate professional, he’s very one-track minded and all he’s thinking about is beating Kiryl Relikh and moving on.
‘He’s in the best shape of his career so far, he’s making the weight a lot better than he did at lightweight, and he’s confident.
‘It is a really tough defence. He has got a fighter here who is relatively unknown. People will look at it on paper: Ricky Burns, three-weight world champion, this is going to be a nice home-town defence. Absolutely not.
‘Kiryl Relikh can really punch, the first three or four rounds are going to be very dangerous for Ricky Burns. By using his experience, getting the jab working and tiring out Kiryl Relikh, I believe he’ll stop him late in the fight, but it’s a very dangerous defence.’
It is and here at Vital Boxing we wouldn?t be too shocked if the hard-punching Relikh took the title off of the Scotsman, it?s just one of those gut feelings I have.
How about you?
Burns Set for WBA super-lightweight Defence
