RICKY BURNS has set his heart on a career-making fight with Juan-Manuel Marquez for the WBO lightweight title held by the Mexican ring legend.
Burns’ emphatic and unanimous points victory over the rugged Australian Michael Katsidis, at Wembley Arena on Saturday night, has opened up several avenues for the Scot. His promoter Frank Warren strongly suggests that a Scottish derby with Edinburgh’s Alex Arthur could be next up, in Glasgow early next year.
However, with Marquez facing pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night for his WBO light-welterweight title in Las Vegas, completing a trilogy of super-fights between the two, Burns is hoping for a victory for the Filipino that would force Marquez to return to lightweight -- where the Scot would be his mandatory challenger.
“The dream fight has to be with Juan-Manuel Marquez. Obviously that will depend on what happens in his fight with Pacquiao, but Marquez is a fighter I have always looked up to and to share a ring with him would be a career-high moment,” said Burns.
He continued: “Marquez is an absolute legend and to share the ring with him would be awesome. That is the type of fight I want to be involved in and one that would maybe happen in Vegas. Nothing could beat that.”
However, with Marquez now 38, the prospect of him dropping back down to 135lb is unlikely.
Should the Mexican lose to ‘Pacman’ for a second time, it would be tough to see his motivation in making his mandatory defence against Burns. Marquez could well vacate his title instead.
If Marquez was to prevail against Pacquiao, there can be no doubt he would vacate to continue at the higher limit.
Warren was keen to promote the prospects of a fight with Arthur, who beat Burns on points in defence of his British, Commonwealth and European super-featherweight titles five years ago.
“There is the possibility of a derby with a certain man from Edinburgh [Arthur], you never know. I think that is a fight that has huge potential and interest in Scotland, and we want to take Ricky back to Glasgow for his next fight,” said Warren.
“But there are other possibilities out there. John Murray faces Brandon Rios for his WBA title next month and if John has his head right he has the style to give Rios a lot of trouble.
“We also have Kevin Mitchell and that is another potentially great British fight. So 2012 is going to be a big year for Ricky and we are not short on options. But we will sit down over the next few weeks and talk them over. Right now Ricky deserves to take some time off and enjoy Christmas.”
Burns’ trainer Billy Nelson, who has steadily expanded the Scot’s weaponry, was keen to look beyond Burns’ next fight and suggested his man may move up to light-welterweight within 18 months.
He said: “There is still a lot to come from Ricky. You saw him at lightweight and he is still massive at 135lb. I have no doubt that, 18 months from now, Ricky will step up again to light-welter and that he will win titles there. Really we have only scratched the surface of Ricky’s talent.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article