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After having close calls in his previous two defenses, WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns came up empty handed against challenger Terence Crawford on Saturday in front of a packed house at Glasgow’s Scottish Exhibition Centre.
The title reign of Burns had been living on borrowed time since getting schooled first by Jose Gonzalez and then Raymundo Beltran in 2013 but the third fight against a fighter from the other side of the Atlantic in less than a year proved to be fatal.
Crawford was just too fast, too precise and just too smooth for Burns, despite the Scotsman having corrected some of the flaws evident against Gonzalez and Beltran.
Burns was much more patient against Crawford, with a couple of exceptions no longer reaching for opportunities that were too far away but this also meant that the champion didn’t throw enough punches.
One of the reasons for Burns’ reluctance was Crawford’s countering skills, which played a large part in shutting the local man down.
Burns did open up at times later in the contest and some of those shots found Crawford but the American never seemed bothered and would immediately retaliate, nullifying any momentum gained.
Crawford’s ability to fight southpaw at a high level, which he did for much of the bout, and his superior footwork caused Burns problems as the Coatbridge man was never able to get his offense in gear.
As the bout wound down, Burns tried to step it up but that just gave Crawford more openings to exploit and by the 12th, Burns was clearly hurt but never went down.
Crawford won all three cards, 117-111, 166-112 and 116-112, capturing the WBO title and remaining undefeated at 23-0 (16), winning his first world title opportunity.
The WBO’s next rated challenger is Beltran, who could be Crawford’s first title defense and if so, would represent a credible threat to the American’s newly minted championship status.
Burns, 36-3 (11), loses for the first time since since 2007, snapping a streak of eight successful world title bouts, four at super feather and four at lightweight.
It should be interesting to see if Burns moves up to light welter, where a contest with Amir Khan would do big business in the north of England or Scotland.
Chief support was provided by lightweight John Murray, who continued his comeback after losing a vacant WBA title shot to Brandon Rios in 2011.
The Manchester man, a former British and European titlist, was pitted against ex-British and Commonwealth featherweight champ John Simpson.
Simpson proved to be game but was just too small to stand in front of a much larger fighter and trade punches. From the first bell, Murray didn’t have much trouble landing his right hand and once Simpson made adjustments to avoid that shot, Murray went elsewhere.
That proved to be the body and Simpson was down twice in the second from left hooks to the ribs. He got up both times and carried on before Murray floored the Scotsman again, prompting the stoppage at 2:58 of the second round.
Murray now stands at 33-2 (20), while Simpson falls to 25-11 (11).
Promising up and comers Scotty Cardle, Martin J Ward, Anthony Joshua and Anthony Ogogo were victorious on the undercard.
