It’s Burns Night again in Scotland on Saturday as tartan pride Ricky Burns faces big-punching Julius Indogo for the IBF, IBO and WBA world super lightweight titles at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro. Sky Sports give a blow-by-blow account, while Coral offer punters the hard-hitting value.
Ricky looking for the big-money fights
34-year-old Ricky Burns ducks between the ropes in front of his own people showing a record of 41 wins, five defeats and one draw. Barring a spell of poor form between losing to Terence Crawford in March 2014 and Omar Figueroa in May 2015, the Glaswegian has been a consistent sort. He returned to world championship level when beating experienced Italian Michele Di Rocco in eight rounds at this venue a year ago, picking up the WBA strap in the process, and made a successful defence when outpointing Kiryl Relikh at the tail-end of 2016.
Rickster now has the chance to add the belts of Indongo, IBF and IBO, to his clutch of awards, a feat that would propel him towards to sport’s top table again. A world champion maybe, and a great ambassador for boxing in Scotland, shining the light on the prospects coming through, but it has been a while since he has been in with an opponent of any real note, and Coral traders expect another home win here.
8/15 is available if you fancy Ricky to win, and that looks NAP material. He has stopped three of his four comeback opponents inside the distance, all failing to hear the final bell, and those with confidence in Burns, currently training out of Essex, can have a whopping 5/1 on another early night. Victory on the scorecards is 10/11 favourite.
Opponent Julius Indongo may not be a house hold name in British boxing just yet, but he is hoping that will all change on Saturday night by wrecking the party and travelling back to Namibia with all three belts.
Boasting an undefeated record and fearsome 52 per cent knockout average from 21 fights, it’s obvious how he will set up in Glasgow. Burns had well-documented problems with a broken jaw in the past, and the underdog will be looking to expose that and inflict a defeat that would probably force him into retirement.
If you fancy a go on the upset there’s plenty of confidence can be taken from the traveller too. As well as an unbeaten record, he has KO’d each of his last two opponents in the first round, including previously unbeaten Russian Eduard Troyanovsky in December. Another knockout win is 5/2 in the method of victory market, while victory, regardless of how he achieves it, is 6/4.
There’s no doubt in my mind Indongo arrives on a golden ticket, and will be beaten. He went from winning an African title to a world title in one fight, with that victory in Russia. He was brought over as an opponent that night, landed a big punch and upset the odds. It’s boxing, it happens. This is a real step up in class for him though and Team Burns won’t be silly enough to stand and trade. Burns for the win is nailed down, in my opinion, while the value goes in backing him by KO/TKO at 5/1.
