We have a new unified junior welterweight titlist in Julius Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs) of Namibia after his 12 round domination of former three division titlist Ricky Burns (41-5-1, 14 KOs). Two fights ago Indongo was a complete unknown on the international scene and now he holds both the WBA and IBF belts. The rise of the Namibian is one of the top stories in boxing in 2017. Does Terence Crawford await?
I scored the fight 119-109 for Indongo and I wasn’t even particularly confident in the round I gave Burns. The fight was so one sided that the 116-112, eight rounds to four scorecard Indongo got in his favor was completely ridiculous. Thankfully it had the right man winning, but four rounds to Burns in this non-competition is a thing that just did not happen.
As for Indongo himself as a fighter, we finally have twelve rounds of tape on him. He keeps his range extremely well, something Burns made much worse by backing up for most of the fight. In a way he sort of reminds me stylistically of the crude, effective southpaw attack of Manny Pacquiao when he was first bursting onto the international scene. His jab and straight left were dominant all night, especially to the body, but they were also wild and from nontraditional angles. His footwork was all over the place with a lot of extra movement, but it did keep him at the right distance to attack most of the time. Where he separated from the early Pacquiao comparison was how he was able to catch Burns with sneaky right hooks when he did try to close the gap.
I also don’t think Indongo is truly a power puncher either. I don’t mean to say he is a soft hitter, but he isn’t a guy about to go on a knockout run through 140 by any means. 40 seconds in Russia can’t erase a 50% KO ratio, but he did clearly bother Burns several times during the fight. I also thought he dropped Burns on a sneaky right hook in the twelfth that was ruled a slip. Burns was battered, but he is a super resilient moment and there was never a single moment where the fight was almost stopped.
The most logical fight next is for Julius Indongo to finish unifying the division with the man who holds to the other two belts, pound for pound elite Terence Crawford. We do not get this opportunity often and I really hope it happens. I can’t see Indongo beating Crawford though. We have to keep in mind that Ricky Burns is not an elite level fighter, belt in his third weight class or not. He had no real track record at junior welterweight to speak of and was largely handed the title on a platter. Terence Crawford will handle the crude attacking style of Julius Indongo much differently, much more effectively. I won’t say Indongo cannot possibly be competitive though. He really did look great.
As for Burns, he said in his post-fight interview that he is going to bounce back and keep fighting. Maybe he can get a sanctioning body to give him another easy target for a vacant belt if one comes open again, but he is not beating a top fighter. The Omar Figueroa fight a couple years ago was really hist last hurrah. A domestic fight with Anthony Crolla could do well and I strongly believe he would do best to think along those lines.
