43 Facts About Ricky Burns

Ricky Burns was born on 13 April 1983 and is a Scottish professional boxer.

Ricky Burns is one of only three British boxers to have won world titles in three weight divisions and the first from Scotland, having held the WBO super-featherweight title from 2010 to 2011; the WBO lightweight title from 2012 to 2014; and the WBA light-welterweight title from 2016 to 2017.

Ricky Burns next had a crack at the British title almost exactly a year later when in February 2007, he met reigning champion Carl Johanneson at the Town Hall in Leeds.

Ricky Burns had worked with Rab Bannan at the Barn Boxing Club for over 14 years, but the Johanneson defeat prompted a need for a change of direction.

Since the fight with Johanneson, Ricky Burns won eight fights in a row.

Ricky Burns spent time sparring former opponent Alex Arthur in preparation for Arthur's WBO super-featherweight title defence against Nicky Cook.

In September 2008, Ricky Burns was in line for a crack at the vacant Commonwealth title, a belt which had been given up by Londoner Kevin Mitchell.

Ricky Burns defended his crown at Glasgow's Kelvin Hall soon afterwards in November 2008, against another Ghanaian, Yakubu Amidu.

Ricky Burns however was too much and his superior fitness levels showed as the referee stopped the contest in the seventh round, handing victory to the Scotsman.

On 20 June 2009, Ricky Burns made perhaps the toughest defence of his title yet with a hard-fought 12 round win over Northern Ireland's Kevin O'Hara, with the assistance of the highly experienced trainer Billy Nelson and his Fighting Scots Gym in Stepps.

Finally after almost a year of frustration Ricky Burns re-entered the ring on 15 May 2010, on the undercard of Kevin Mitchell's world title shot against Michael Katsidis at the Boleyn Ground.

Ricky Burns continued his winning streak and kept ticking over with an eight-round win over journeyman and former foe Youssef Al Hamidi.

On 4 December 2010, Ricky Burns defended his title for the first time against Norwegian boxer Andreas Evensen who held the WBO Inter-Continental featherweight title.

On 12 March 2011, Ricky Burns made his second defence again at the Braehead Arena.

Ricky Burns was next scheduled to meet mandatory challenger, and Boxrec No 1 rated super-featherweight, Adrien Broner, but announced on 22 September 2011 that he would be relinquishing his WBO super-featherweight title and moving up to compete at lightweight.

On 26 January 2012, Ricky Burns was installed as WBO lightweight champion after former champion Juan Manuel Marquez moved up a division to welterweight.

Ricky Burns defended his WBO lightweight title against Namibian fighter Paulus Moses.

Ricky Burns will have the homefield advantage with the fight being held in Braehead Arena, Glasgow.

In June 2012 it was confirmed after months of negotiations that Ricky Burns' next fight will be another defence of his WBO lightweight title, against former WBO Inter-Continental lightweight champion Kevin Mitchell on 22 September 2012.

In front of a sold out Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre Ricky Burns turned in a career best performance to defeat Mitchell via fourth-round TKO.

Ricky Burns looked the much bigger man on fight night and seemed to recognise this adopting a more aggressive style, he was gaining control of the fight by the 4th round out boxing Mitchell he would go on to knock Mitchell down twice in round 4 in the last minute of round 4 and a further onslaught forced the referee to stop the fight.

On 15 December 2012, Ricky Burns was expected to defend his WBO lightweight title against Liam Walsh at the ExCeL, London.

Ricky Burns was due to defend his WBO title while challenging for Vazquez' IBF title.

On 11 March 2013 it was confirmed that Ricky Burns had joined Eddie Hearn's Matchroom promotions and fought for the first time under Matchroom on 11 May 2013, when he faced Puerto Rican Jose Gonzalez at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, a fight broadcast on Sky Sports.

On 27 June 2014 Ricky Burns fought Dejan Zlaticanin at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow.

Ricky Burns lost the fight to Zlaticanin on split decision points, this was his second consecutive loss.

Ricky Burns defeated French journeyman Alexandre Lepelley via points on his light-welterweight debut on 4 October 2014.

Ricky Burns lost a controversial decision as the judges in Texas scored the fight widely to the home fighter.

Ricky Burns then went on to win two consecutive fights, firstly with a TKO victory against Prince Ofotsu on 1 August 2015 in Hull then winning via KO against Josh King on 7 November 2015 in Liverpool.

Ricky Burns dominated from start to finish with his jab and right cross, knocking his opponent down on the third and stopping him in the eighth in front of a packed crowd.

Ricky Burns seemed to take some shots which seemed to shake him for split seconds as he carried on and showed that he is a master of pacing 12 round fights.

Ricky Burns needed good movement as Relikh switched to and from the southpaw stance which helped cut the distance.

Ricky Burns was a lot better than we thought he was going to be.

Ricky Burns told Sky Sports, he agreed to the fight straight away when he first heard about the speculations.

Ricky Burns said, both he and Crolla were in the same position, coming off losses.

Manchester Arena was confirmed as the venue, marking it the first time Ricky Burns would fight in Manchester.

Sky pundits at ringside had either Crolla winning or a draw, however none believed Ricky Burns had done enough to warrant a win.

Crolla was the busier fighter throwing much more than Ricky Burns and focused a lot of his body shots.

Ricky Burns made Crolla miss a lot with his movement and looked to land cleaner and accurate punches.

Ricky Burns just kept coming, he gave me a very tough fight, but I thought my quality shots won it.

On 3 November, at just one weeks notice, Ricky Burns stepped in to replace Joe Cordina and fight Scott Cardle on 10 November 2018 at the Manchester Arena.

Ricky Burns dominated and then knocked out Cardle in round 3 to continue his comeback in 2018.

On 26 October 2019, Ricky Burns faced former world champion Lee Selby.