Raucous Glasgow support can't prevent Crawford taking Burns' lightweight crown

By Jeff Powell  -  dailymail.co.uk

Ricky Burns put in the brave-heart performance of his career but it was not enough to prevent him losing Scotland’s only world title.

Terence Crawford was too quick, too smart, too elusive and basically too brilliant for Glasgow’s defending world lightweight champion.

Holder: Terence Crawford celebrates after winning the fight as Ricky Burns (left) looks dejected

Send off: Burns waves to the crowd after losing the fight on a unanimous points decision

Not even the raucous support of a deafening crowd in the SECC could carry Burns to an epic effort, nor for that matter distract or discourage the lavishly talented challenger from Omaha, Nebraska.

Burns forgot his surgically repaired jaw from the start and by going flat out from the first bell earned his share of the early rounds.

But the longer it went the more Crawford tied him up – and then beat him up on the ropes.

From level pegging after an even seventh round, the 26-year-old being touted as the next Floyd Mayweather won every round on my card.

Quick out he blocks: Burns looked up for it in the opening rounds at the SECC in Glasgow

Even: The first three rounds could have gone either way, but Burns soon lost his way

That made him a 117-112 winner. The judges, carefully selected by the WBO after Burns was gifted a scandalous draw on the night Ray Beltran broke that jaw, were in that area. Two of them scored it 116-112, the other 117-111.

But that should not deprive Burns of recognition for a valiant career. This was his fifth defence of this title, his tenth overall.

In not one of them did he willingly surrender an inch of that roped scaffold.

But while the atmosphere was electrifying, it was Crawford who was on fire.

Reaching in: Crawford was clever, coming back with a vengeance whenever he was caught

Cowering: Crawford dominated the majority of the next nine rounds, and silenced Glasgow at the end

Burns talked re-match but that is unlikely. Crawford is on his way to bigger things – in Las  Vegas and New York – now.

There are good fights worth Burns taking but the mega-nights in Glasgow would appear to be over now.

Burns assured those still left in the arena a few minutes after the verdict: ‘I’ll be back.’

He certainly has the courage to come again but the notion that he might equal or even surpass the great Ken Buchanan in the Scottish legend has faded now.
 

Source:  www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/boxing/article-2571162/Terence-Crawford-beats-Ricky-Burns-points-win-WBO-lightweight-title.html