Ricky Burns defeats Paulus Moses to retain WBO lightweight title

Scotland’s world champion outclassed his brave and awkward Namibian opponent, himself a former world champion, to take the bout by a unanimous and wide points decision.

The place where Scott Harrison once ruled the roost is now the court of King Ricky of Coatbridge, with the sell-out 6,000 crowd cheering his every move and chanting his name even before the fight started.

Former world heavyweight champion Frank Bruno was introduced to the crowd before the main event and received a standing ovation. It was good to see the big fellow looking so happy and well.

Moses’ promoter, the legendary Don King, was a no-show, however, and that had been taken as a portent of bad things for the challenger. The 33-year-old police inspector is a national hero in Namibia and had tea with his country’s president shortly before leaving for Glasgow.

Burns is too nice a chap to tell him his tea was “oot” as they say in Glasgow, but didn’t take long to let Moses know he was in for a hard night.

Moses began the fight dominating the centre of the ring as a former WBA champion might expect to, but unusually for Burns, the champion was into his boxing early and won the opener with crisp punches to head and body.

Like so many African boxers, Moses was well-schooled and tough as teak, and in the second he threw plenty leather but Burns shipped it on his arms and fists while scoring neatly with hooks to the body.

Burns stepped up the pace in the third and scored freely while Moses missed often. With a quarter of the fight gone, it looked good for the champion who had won every round and was displaying superior ringcraft, as drilled into him by trainer Billy Nelson.

Moses got his jab working in the fourth, but one sort of punch is not enough against the man promoter Warren also calls the most improved fighter in Britain, and by the end of the round the challenger had sustained such a variety of punches that he looked quite bamboozled.

As if to prove his toughness, Moses then had his best round of the fight to that point, but the fifth ended with Burns on top, and in the sixth, the jabs, hooks and uppercuts of the Scot gave him the round and an overwhelming lead at halfway.

There was really only one question by the end of the seventh – would Moses be able to stand the Scot’s barrage until the final bell. The Namibian’s fitness was never in doubt, nor was his pride as an ex-champ, but his tendency to want to wrestle was spoiling the fight as a spectacle, Burns quite rightly taking breathers in the clinches before landing more scoring punches. Burns was perhaps not reaching the heights he showed against Roman Martinez and Michael Katsidis, but he was still far too good for Moses, who nevertheless made a contest of it in the final quarter, even if he never troubled Burns at all.

On the undercard, former British featherweight champion Paul Appleby scored a unanimous if narrow points decision over Stephen Ormond of Dublin in the chief supporting contest.

Appleby’s bid for the Celtic super-featherweight title followed his titanic fight of 2011 against Liam Walsh, and he was soon in another all-out war.

Ormond was deducted a point for holding at a time when Appleby looked to be gaining momentum, but the man from South Queensferry may count himself fortunate to have won after yet another gruelling contest.

Scotland’s 2010 Commonwealth games light-heavyweight champion Callum Johnson from Lincoln moved to four wins, no losses with two knockouts after he stopped Tommy Tolan from Belfast inside 90 seconds.

Stephen Simmons continued his satisfactory progress in the paid ranks with a sixth-round stoppage of the brave but limited Hastings Rasani from Birmingham. Like Johnson, Simmons moves to four wins, no losses with two knockouts.

Appleby, Johnson and Simmons have a huge example to follow as their careers develop – the best fighter in Britain and still the champion of the world, Ricky Burns of Coatbridge.