Ricky Burns: knocked to the floor by Dejan Zlaticanin during the opening round
Ricky Burns failed to recover from a first-minute knockdown as he fell on points to Dejan Zlaticanin in their battle for the WBC International lightweight title in Glasgow.
Burns finished the fight at Braehead Arena strongly, but his good late work was not enough to secure victory on the cards as he went down 115-113, 113-115, 115-113 in a split decision in favour of the hard-hitting Montenegrin.
Zlaticanin, who became a father earlier in the day, started like a man possessed and caught Burns with a shot to the chin inside the first 20 seconds, a partisan home crowd stunned into silence.
The knockdown seemed to affect Burns over the first half of the fight, with the southpaw continuing to sit back and pick him off with big punches, some of the haymaker variety but still proving effective.
Burns, beaten by Terence Crawford in his last fight in March, began to fight back during the middle rounds and started to make back some of the losses he had clearly suffered earlier on.
And that pattern continued until the end, with Burns pressing Zlaticanin back and his opponent waiting for rare chances to throw another long, looping left hand. Read full Story...
