Burns awarded WBO title

Ricky Burns has been declared the full WBO World Lightweight Champion after Mexican Manuel Marquez has moved up to the welterweight division. Scottish star Burns won the Interim title when he beat Michael Katsidis last November in his first fight at lightweight, with Marquez holding the full title while he decided his next move. This means that Burns will go into his title fight against former world champion Paulus Moses on March 10th at the Braehead Arena as the full champion."When I beat Katsidis I felt like a world champion anyway, but this makes it all real and I'm thrilled with the news that I'm now the official full world champion," said Burns."It's a great feeling, but now it's now back to reality and training hard for what will be a tough title defence against Moses in my Scottish homecoming on March 10," "For the last ten years I've been grafting away in my career, but in the last couple of years it has really taken off with me beating Martinez and then beating a great warrior like Katsidis to put me up with the best in the world," The 28-year-old joins WBO World Light-Heavyweight Champion Nathan Cleverly as Britain's only two world champions, with Cleverly defending his title against American Tommy Karpency on February 25th at Cardiff's Motropoint Arena."Nathan's a great fighter and Britain has now got two world champions to be proud of who can fly the flag on the world stage." added Burns.