Schaefer: Golden Boy has not approached Ricky Burns

Well, the saga of Ricky Burns and his promotional situation is just getting, in typical boxing fashion, crazier by the hour. According to World Boxing News, Richard Schaefer has exclusively told them that there has been no attempt to begin any negotiations with Burns. This is, of course, in total contradiction to earlier reports to the contrary.

"We haven't made any effort to talk to Ricky Burns," Schaefer told World Boxing News.

"He is still under contract to Frank Warren and a fighter cannot simply declare that they are free and then the next day sign with another promoter.

"Also, I am not in the business of stealing other promoter's fighters," he added.

Now, Golden Boy did try to steal Manny Pacquiao several years ago, but that's a loooooong story.

It was reported this morning that Golden Boy was interested in adding Burns to their UK stable of fighters. That makes sense because Burns is generally thought of as one of the top two or three lightweights in the world. It would also help to create a matchup between Burns and Golden Boy's Adrien Broner. The Ring Magazine's website's twitter actually tweeted just a couple hours ago that Schaefer was trying to make Broner - Burns for June 15.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Lem: Schaefer: Trying to do either Broner-Burns on June 15, or Broner-Malignaggi on June 22 <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23boxing">#boxing</a></p>&mdash; Michael, Doug or Lem (@ringmagazine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ringmagazine/status/310088354857381889">March 8, 2013</a></blockquote>

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But Schaefer is also right that a boxer cannot just up and leave whenever he feels like it. Promotional contracts die harder than Bruce Willis, and the feeling is that this could be ugly. I would be shocked if Burns fights any time soon.