Scotland’s Ricky Burns climbed off the canvas to controversially hold onto his WBO lightweight title after a draw with tough Mexican Raymundo Beltran in Glasgow on Saturday.
Burns kept his crown after one judge awarded him the win by a score of 115-112, with another plumping for Beltran by 115-113 with the third seeing it as a draw 114-114.
However, even the partisan home crowd could scarcely seem to believe the result in a fight Beltran seemed to dominate throughout.
Burns suffered a dislocated jaw in the second round, was almost decked in the fourth and was finally floored in eighth, while Beltran never seemed in trouble.
The 30-year-old Scot was making the fourth defense of the title he first won at the end of 2011, beating Australian Michael Katsidis on points.
However, he struggled with Beltran’s power throughout and in the breaks between the latter rounds repeatedly complained about his jaw.
Beltran, a former sparring partner of Philippine great Manny Pacquiao, was in his first ever world title fight and had lost three of his previous nine bouts, but he dispelled any notion that he was the inexperienced campaigner at this level by dominating throughout.
The 32-year-old Mexican’s record moved to 28 wins, six defeats and one draw while Burns, a former WBO super-featherweight champion, is now 36-3-1.
Burns started brightly enough, using his jab and controlling the range in the first round, but from the second round, Beltran started to enjoy increasing success with his left hook.
That was the shot that almost put Burns on the floor in the fourth round, but the Coatbridge fighter did not learn his lesson and he was caught flush on the chin at the beginning of round eight — and this time he was sent sprawling to the canvas.
The 30-year-old got to his feet at the count of eight and managed to clear his head and survive the round.
Burns, who said he would happily give Beltran a rematch, added: “Halfway through that fight, I don’t know how I got through that,” because of the pain to his jaw.
“Beltran hardly seemed surprised by the result, although he said he had “absolutely” won the fight.
“I did everything I had to do to win this fight,” he said. “Politics, it’s always the same thing. There’s a promoter, there’s money involved, it’s a business. It is what it is. It’s disrespectful for the fighters, for the fans and they [promoters] just play with the business because they have the power. I get robbed every time right and left. It’s so frustrating because it’s hard work and sacrifice and you put your life on the line. I’m the champion.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier