“When things were happening at the time I was trying to say it wasn’t bothering me but obviously it was”.
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“I’ve come through a lot and this fight for me I wasn’t going to get any bigger than that”.
The white-hot atmosphere inside the arena, hosting its first professional boxing event, inspired Burns into the first round and he had his opponent in trouble in the early exchanges, staggering him with a smart left-hand.
The Scot claimed the vacant WBA super-lightweight title to add to previous WBO super-featherweight and lightweight belts, becoming just the third Brit behind Bob Fitzsimmons and Duke McKenzie to achieve the feat.
The Italian survived seven largely one-sided rounds before Burns landed an overhand right in the eighth and bundled him to the canvas a moment later.
The money for the fight would need to be worth it for Burns, 33, to take the risk of traveling to the U.S rather than staying in the United Kingdom and making simple defenses of his WBA title against the top 15 challengers.
The situation is changing over here with more and more boxoffice boxing, but there are still only a few active fighters that can follow in Burns’ footsteps or surpass him if he wins tonight.
“When that fight was stopped I could feel myself welling up”, he said in the ring afterwards. “I did make super-lightweight a bit too comfortable so lightweight’s always an option as well”.
That futile stretch started with a unanimous-decision loss to Terence Crawford, who stripped Burns of his WBO lightweight belt in the process. “After everything that’s happened, my promoter Eddie Hearn and Matchroom showed faith in me and delivered this big fight”. And there are other big fights out there. I don’t think anyone would argue that those three fighters are as good as the guys that Burns lost to.
Burns (39-5-1, 13 KOs) has won two fights in a row since a rough stretch in which he went 1-3-1, including a highly controversial draw in 2013 in a lightweight title defense against Raymundo Beltran that most observers had Beltran clearly winning.
The second round saw more sharp work from Burns, who couldn’t seem to miss with his ramrod jab while moving on the back foot at times, while also mixing in some very accurate right hands.
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Crawford and Broner would likely know that they would have problems if they fought any of those guys, which is probably why they won’t fight them.
