Earlier this week we reported that Ricky Burns lightweight unification fight against Miguel Vazquez had been rescheduled, however, it now looks like the fight might be off altogether.
The fight, which was originally scheduled for the March 16th, looks to be in serious jeopardy after Burns’ manager Alex Morrison told the Scotsman that they would be parting company with promoter Frank Warren. The Burns-Vasquez clash had been set to be headline Warrens’ Rule Britannia card but the postponement of the fight until the April 20th has seemingly led to the WBO champion weighing up his options.
Burns hasn’t fought since September when he stopped domestic rival Kevin Mitchell in emphatic style with a 4th round stoppage and the Burns camp has become frustrated with his inactivity in the ring. The Scot had already seen his December clash against Liam Walsh and then Jose Ocampo cancelled and the Vazquez postponement seems to be one too many for the lightweight champion.
Morrison told the Scotsman, “I regret it has come to this because I have known Frank for nearly 40 years, but it has to be for Ricky’s sake. I felt we had to do something to stop Ricky stagnating. Two fights have been called off after he has trained hard for them and it was not even certain that the bout with Vazquez would have gone ahead on 20 April. In fact, I now doubt very much that fight was ever going to happen.”
Frank Warren has yet to comment on the split, and it would be surprising if Burns could walk away from his commitments so easily. Warren has already lost one of his top fighters, George Groves, earlier this week and he won’t want to lose a second in quick succession, so this saga may drag on for a while yet.
Even if the two parties manage to reach a quick conclusion, what does seem certain is that the intriguing clash between Burns and Vasquez won’t be happening any time soon. Hopefully for Burns’ sake he will be back in the ring in the near future, as he is in his peak years, but don’t count on Vazquez being the opponent.
