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 Burton's Back
By Steve Kim (December 04, 2003)
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Coming off his career changing win against Angel Manfredy in July, lightweight contender Courtney Burton gets back into the swing of things when he headlines ESPN2's Friday Night Fights this week from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands against Francisco Lorenzo.
On a hot night in Hammond, Indiana, Burton, using a combination of boxing, punching and alternating between his usual orthodox and southpaw style, would halt Manfredy in eight. With that huge win, which was televised nationally on ESPN2's Tuesday Night Fights series, Burton became a player in the lightweight division.
But if he himself gets upset this Friday night that win means nothing.
"Exactly," Burton agreed in and telephone interview with MaxBoxing from his hotel room in the Virgin Islands. "Nuthin' else to say."
Burton says nothing has really changed since his big win.
"I'm just taking my time, training hard, getting ready to do it again this Friday," he says coolly (so coolly in fact that it sounds like he was on the verge of falling asleep). "I'm just taking it fight by fight.
I'm trying not to look over anybody, just taking my time."
But he does realize that in this fight, he is playing the role of Manfredy to the upstart Lorenzo, who gave prospect Juan Diaz all he could handle back in July.
He is now 'the hunted'.
"Yeah," he admits, "but it don't make me nervous. They come, I don't worry about it. I just get myself ready and do it again."
In the past, Burton was prone to put on more than a few pounds in between fights. An admitted junk food junky, he had no problems making weight for this fight.
"Oh, no, I didn't take off long, I took off probably two weeks, it wasn't hard," he says.
For this bout, Burton had trained in Benton Harbor with his life-long trainer and surrogate father, Napoleon Lark. Sam Colonna, who had done most of the work with Burton in Chicago for the bout with Manfredy, is flying in a few days before the bout to work the corner. Burton and Lark would make periodic trips to 'the Windy City' to get some sparring in at Colonna's gym.
Burton has also done his best to stay away as much as possible from the dangers and temptations of Benton Harbor, a city that has gained unwanted notoriety for civil unrest, crime and a high unemployment rate.
"Oh yeah, yup, yes I was," he says assuredly. "I watched my back, kinda fell out with my friends, made new friends, different people, some of those people I don't hang out with no more. I just try to stay with people doing the positive thing."
But there has been one drawback to his huge summer win – other contenders aren't exactly in a rush to face him
"Yeah, they ain't jumping too quickly," said Burton.
And getting television slots for him has been difficult.
"I would explain it as impossible," said his promoter Malcolm Garrett. "For whatever reason, ESPN claimed they had no dates available but yet there were still guys getting dates and nobody wants to fight Courtney Burton. I give this Francisco Lorenzo credit, when they offered him the fight, he jumped up and said 'Hell, yeah, let's go'.
But he's in a situation where he can't turn a fight like this down.
"Courtney's in a situation where he's not afraid to fight anybody at lightweight. We've been offered fights at 140 pounds, which I turned down. Courtney would take the fights, but Courtney's a lightweight at this moment. I'm not going to fight him at 140 pounds with a world rated 140 pounder. But any lightweight in the world that'll come in at 135 pounds, we'll fight."
You would have thought that Burton had earned another spot on ESPN after his win but that wasn't the case.
"Here's what happened," explains a frustrated Garrett. "I've been trying to nail down a date with ESPN for Courtney, been talking to Bob Yalen for months since the fight. Of course he claimed all the dates were taken through the year – this was back in July – there was no dates available, not for me as a promoter. Of course in the meantime, I've got guys calling us, offering us fights with other promoters on ESPN. So I asked about a February date and I was willing to accept that and I told Yalen and ESPN 'We don't want to fight a duck. We'll fight a world rated fighter, somebody in the top ten, somebody that means something'. Y'know everybody wants to fight a soft touch, that's what's wrong with boxing."
And with the recent news concerning the direction of Friday Night Fights on ESPN2, Burton is lucky to be in this position.
"Sugar Ray Leonard's main event fell out," said Garrett. "He had a main event between Lawrence Clay-Bey and Samuel Peter. That was the advertised main event but when they called and asked if Courtney Burton was available, I knew Courtney had already been in the gym training very good. He's been focused, he was already in good shape.
"We still had three weeks to go, so of course we have to take this opportunity. If you're a real fighter you have to take these opportunities. We're not interested in fighting for a world title – we're interested in winning one. Nobody is going to voluntarily fight Courtney Burton. We're going to have to become the mandatory."
Burton is getting closer to that destination, he is rated in the top ten by the WBA, IBF and WBO. The Ring magazine lists him as their sixth rated lightweight.
Strangely enough, the WBC has dropped him from 15th to 25th and now to 26th in its ratings in recent months.
"Now, you tell me who's running that asylum?" asked an incredulous Garrett. "You look at the guys above Courtney, there are some guys of course that deserver to be above him but 10 or 15 that don't even belong in the ratings."
Perhaps Garrett doesn't have the political clout within the sanctioning bodies to maneuver Burton to a mandatory position. Would he seek the help of one of the bigger promotional companies?
"Here's the thing, if you have a mediocre fighter, then you give rights to somebody," said Garrett. "When you got the real deal, you don't give up anything. I got the real guy here. I'm not going to let one of the big guys come in here and screw this kid out of the money. He's the real guy, he can beat 'em all."
MaxBoxing Members will read Kim's inside info on ESPN's new stance on license fees for promoters, an upcoming HBO card and George Foreman.
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