Ricky Burns moving up to Lightweight

Unable to continue making the 130-pound weight limit, Scotland's Burns has vacated his WBO Jr. Lightweight belt and is moving up to Lightweight, where he'll face Michael Katsidis (28-4) for the vacant WBO interim lightweight title. The fight will take place in London, England on November 5th.

Burns has a fine record, 34-2, but only 9 KO's, moving up in weight, to face a hard hitting slugger like Katsidis, will be a big test, especially when you don't have enough power to keep a pug like Kats honest.

Ricky Burns - Boxer

Thoughts on Burns and this fight Nov. 5th?

I give Ricky a chance I expect him to perfrom better than Mitchell, Katsidis has beaten every other Brit he has fought.

His style leaves him open to a good boxer, unfortunately Mitchell wasnt well prepared for that fight. If Burns uses his boxing skills and throws good volumes of punches he can outwork Katsidis.

As long as he doesn't get troubled by Katsidis power he has a chance. Hes shown in the past against Martinez that he has the ability to box against a fighter who had power. However Katsidis isn't Martinez and Katsidis is way above Martinez in terms of power and skill level.

For Katsidis this won't be an easy fight because Burns isn't too bad. Katsidis needs to do what he does in his fights and throw a lot of power punches. This is Burns' first fight at 135 and Katsidis needs to show him that 135 is a lot tougher than 130. Katsidis is capable of knocking out any fighter and as long as he isn't sloppy he should get by Burns.

I hope Burns can pull it off though. This is without any doubt his toughest fight to date and I wish him luck. I would love to see him pull off a similar Martinez performance and shock the boxing world again. He's shown he's capable of a miracle and I wish him luck in doing it again.