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Ricky Burns beats Kiryl Relikh on points to retain WBA super-lightweight title

Ricky Burns makes the first successful defence of his WBA super-lightweight world title with a unanimous points victory over Kiryl Relikh in Glasgow.

Britain's Ricky Burns has made a successful first defence of his WBA world super-lightweight title against Kyril Relikh in Glasgow.

The Scot, a three-weight world champion, took a while to get going after a promising start from the Belarusian challenger.

It proved to be a fierce and heated battle, with Relikh putting in an aggressive and determined display, but Burns ended up winning unanimously on points.

Previously unbeaten Relikh, trained by Ricky Hatton and based in Manchester, began brightly as he moved in and out and landed big right hands on the home favourite.

Burns, the more experienced of the pair, really got going in round three and gave Relikh as good as he got as the fighters went toe to toe in the centre.

As the fight reached the mid-rounds, Burns began to outwork and chip away at Relikh, who had only been past five rounds once before.

The fight began to turn in Burns's favour by the eighth as he increased the tempo and connected strongly with his right.

In the 10th, Relikh took two shots to the jaw but his aggression had not lessened and, when he landed a big left, he appeared to have Burns in trouble for the first time in the fight.

Nonetheless, the home favourite was able to get over the finishing line as he sealed victory via scores of 118-110 and 116-112 twice.

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