Can Ricky Burns Pass The Crawford Acid Test Tonight?

After two very difficult and controversial title defenses, Ricky Burns puts his WBO lightweight belt on the line for a fourth time as he meets heavily-hyped American contender Terence Crawford tonight at the Scottish Exhibition Centre in Glasgow.

Crawford comes into his first world title opportunity on the strength of a 2013 campaign that saw him defeat Breidis Prescott, Alejandro Sanabria and Andrey Klimov. In doing so, the native of Omaha, Nebraska displayed the kind of sharp skills that have convinced many that he will end the WBO reign of Scotland’s Burns.

After an initial defense over domestic rival Kevin Mitchell in 2012, Ricky Burns had two troubled outings in 2013, first getting handily outboxed by Puerto Rico’s Jose Gonzalez for seven rounds before the challenger suddenly retired at the end of the ninth and then getting beaten up by Mexico’s Raymundo Beltran in August.

In both those contests, Burns was made to pay for his penchant of winging big punches from an upright position. Gonzalez kept Burns at a distance and punished the WBO champ with right hand counters while pressure artist Beltran, who broke Burns’ jaw in the second round, used a left hook on the inside with devastating results, flooring Burns in the eighth, but had to settle for a dubious draw.

Terence Crawford has an approach closer to that of Gonzalez; preferring to fight from the outside, often switching to a southpaw stance but the American has a tighter, more composed style.

Burns’ experiences with Gonzalez and Beltran suggest that he will have big problems with the abilities of Crawford, who shouldn’t have a problem hitting the target.

Burns does have one massive edge however, that of experience and more importantly, experience in very difficult circumstances.

The 30 year old from Coatbridge, Scotland came up the hard way, losing early fights to Alex Arthur and Carl Johanneson before jumping way up in competition to come off the canvas and shock Rocky Martinez for the WBO super feather crown in 2010.

Hardly anyone gave Burns a prayer of unseating Martinez but “The Rickster” refused to buckle in a torrid slugfest with the more experienced Puerto Rican.

Nothing worked for Burns against the crafty Gonzalez but the former Commonwealth champion never gave up, continuing to exert pressure until Gonzalez broke, either from the announced injury or from exhaustion and mental fatigue in his first world title fight.

Despite suffering a broken jaw early against Beltran, Burns never stopped trying, even when getting nailed point blank with flush shots directly on the jaw, displaying an incredible toughness.

And that is what Crawford will have to overcome if he is to win the WBO title from Burns.

Burns’ best punch is his jab, with a good left to the body and a looping right hand on the inside but if he loses to Crawford, it will be because he is open defensively when he throws the latter two shots.

Burns will probably take the fight to Crawford, using the long jab in an attempt to shorten the distance Crawford will likely create and try to maintain. If Burns tries to launch his power punches from too far away, as he did against Gonzalez, Crawford has the skills to exact a toll for that mistake.

So Burns will need to cut off the ring through constant movement and pressure, which will probably take a few rounds to achieve. By the middle rounds, he should be close enough to Crawford to engage but he’ll have to keep his punches more compact and his chin down or he will see a replay of the Beltran fight all over again.

Crawford has gone 10 rounds twice and will probably be in his first 12 rounder tonight, so he’ll have to make sure he doesn’t expend too much energy in the early going. If he remains patient and composed, capitalizing on any mistakes Burns makes, he should be in the driver’s seat going into the later rounds.

But at that point, things could get interesting. Crawford could well believe that, as he is fighting on Burns’ home ground, he’ll have to KO the champion in order to win the title, especially given the experience of Beltran in the same arena.

Crawford will have to expend a lot of energy and take chances to try and pull this off, leading to a slugfest against a hardened champion with good stamina and durability.

This actually represents Burns’ best chance to win the fight, getting the relatively inexperienced and untested Crawford into the trenches to see just how good the American’s stamina and punch resistance are.

If Crawford is truly world champion material, he should win this but if Burns has corrected his flaws, the WBO title will stay in Scotland.

It should be an excellent bout with the winner impossible to predict beforehand.