On 15th April Ricky Burns will be hoping he can unify the WBA and IBF super-lightweight titles.
Fighting at the Hydro, in Glasgow, Burns will be faced with a formidable opponent in the opposite corner, in the shape of Julius Indongo.
Indongo is no stranger to fighting in a hostile environment having travelled to Russia to face the then IBF title holder, Eduard Troyanovsky, winning the belt by virtue of a knockout.
The Namibian is set to give Burns a major test and with the bout a month away Eddie Hearn has provided an excellent insight into Burns mind-set ahead of the fight.
Hearn, in describing the opponent Burns is set to face, has remarked to the media,
‘It’s not wrong for him because he can’t win the fight, it’s just that there were easier options for more money.
‘That’s why you have to admire him, because he doesn’t care about the money, he cares about creating a legacy, about creating history. That’s inspirational.’
One of the easier options available to Burns was the recently retired New York based fighter Paulie Malignaggi, but it appears, despite efforts to persuade Burns otherwise, it was always going to be the Namibian and a unification fight that burns craved for, with Hearn further adding,
‘To get a unification fight in this division is very difficult, because it’s either Terence Crawford [the WBC and WBO super-lightweight champion] or this guy.
‘This was one we targeted and, in the meantime, the Malignaggi fights and other fights came up who were bigger names but were easier.
‘I’m going to Ricky Burns and saying, ‘you can fight this guy for x money or this horrible nightmare for less money, what do you want to do?’.
‘And he said, ‘I’ll fight the horrible guy for less money’. So I thought I’d better phone Alex [Morrison, his manager] to talk him out of this.
‘Alex agreed with me 100%, as any advisor would do. He phoned me back 10 minutes later and said, ‘it’s a complete waste of time, I’ve spoken to him and this is the only fight he wants’.
‘It’s a 50/50 fight. You’d like to think Indongo would fold, coming to Glasgow and the crowd, but he just went to Russia and knocked out the champion.
‘But Ricky knows what he’s doing. He’s been around a long time.’
The bout will be the first time Scotland has staged a unification fight where both boxers bring world title belts to the ring.
It seems that if Burns can defy the odds and win, another unification match, a re-match, against Terence Crawford could be on the cards for the Scotsman.
Burns Takes the Dangerous Option
