Ricky Burns (41-6-1, 14 KOs) lost his WBA light welterweight title tonight to IBF champion Julius Indongo (22-1, 15 KOs) in a 12 round unanimous decision defeat at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. The fight was about as one-sided as you’ll ever see without it stopped. However, two of the scores by the judges seemed to be in fantasy land in giving Burns rounds that he clearly didn’t win. The scores were 120-108, 118-110 and 116-112. The score of those three that made sense was the 120-108 score.
The southpaw Indongo really had his way with Burns in hitting him with lefts to the body and rights to the head in every round. Indongo set the pace of how the fight was going to be conducted in round 1, as he came out firing big power shots that were catching Burns to the midsection repeatedly. Burns didn’t dare try and land anything in the round because Indongo was hitting him hard with power shots.
Burns played it safe in the first 8 rounds, doing very little, and taking a lot of hard punches. Burns attempted to get back in the fight in the last 4 rounds, but Indongo punished him badly with hard punches. Burns would try briefly to get something started in the last 4 rounds, but Indongo would nail him with shots, and this would send him running away. The judge that scored the fight 116-112 had to have been giving Burns rounds where he landed very punches compared to the ones that Indongo was landing. Burns didn’t do enough to win any of the last 4 rounds because he was just taking shots, and getting caught when he would come forward.
In the 12th, Burns was given a couple of lucky breaks when he was dropped twice by Indongo after being hit. The referee ruled the knockdowns slips. There weren’t any replays given for some reason, but it sure looked like Burns was hit on both occasions when he fell down.
Indongo didn’t say after the fight which direction he’ll be going in. Burns had been planning to fight Adrien Broner next if he’d won the fight tonight. The magic question is will Broner be willing to fight the 5’10 ½” Indongo after the way he beat Burns? Broner had his hands full in his last fight against Adrian Granados. Indongo would be a much tougher fight for Broner than Granados.
Other boxing action on the card:
Charlie Edwards UD 12 Iain Butcher
Robbie Barrett MD 12 Scotty Cardle
Lawrence Okolie KO 1 Lukasz Rusiewicz
Josh Kelly points 6 Jay Byrne
