Britain’s Ricky Burns became a three-weight world champion by stopping Italian Michele Di Rocco in the eighth round to claim the WBA super-lightweight belt in Glasgow on Saturday night.
The 33-year-old previously held the WBO versions of the super-featherweight and lightweight world titles.
In an all-action performance, Burns floored 34-year-old Di Rocco in the eighth round, and although the
Italian rose to his feet, referee Terry O’Connor waved off the contest.
Burns becomes the first ever Scot to win world titles at three different weights.
Di Rocco was down in the third round and given a standing eight count having already had a time-out for a low blow earlier in the round. Burns’s aggression was paying dividends against an opponent who appeared somewhat taken aback.
Di Rocco started to pick things up from the sixth round but he was in trouble several times in the eighth before he was knocked down by a right hand. That proved the end for Di Rocco but a new beginning for Burns, who had lost three of his previous six bouts.
Burns beat Puerto Rican Roman Martinez to win the super-featherweight title in 2010, defending it three times. He won the lightweight title in 2011, beating Australia’s Michael Katsidis but after successfully defending it four times, he was well beaten on points by American Terrence Crawford in 2014.

Thailand grapples with first big bout
Thailand hosted its first major mixed martial arts event in Bangkok on Saturday, as cage fighting makes inroads in a country fiercely proud of its homegrown Muay Thai boxing tradition.
But the near-capacity crowd was left disappointed as Thai-born Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke, lost out to the Japanese strawweight challenger Yoshitaka Naito.
Some Thai fighters are turning from traditional Muay Thai to MMA, a transition smoothed by the Thai sport’s versatile elbow, punch and kick techniques.
The glitzy event, under the banner of the ONE Championship which is pushing cage fighting across Asia, was held despite opposition from Muay Thai purists who fear the new, big-spending sport could chip away at the domestic martial art.
“I’m buzzing... watching MMA in Thailand. I’m sad for the Thais but it’s a great game... It’s just so raw, so real,” said a spectator, Charles O’Farrell, who recently joined Dej’s gym in Singapore. “There’s no hiding in the cage, make no mistake about that.”
The growing international clout of MMA is offering a greater lure to Muay Thai fighters—and that has ruffled the feathers of traditionalists in Thailand who fear the all-action sport may one day eclipse the kingdom’s venerated boxing style.
In recent decades MMA has gone from a niche sideshow to a multi-billion dollar industry and one of the world’s fastest growing sports—with Asia no exception—and many cage fighters are trained in Muay Thai.
The Sports Authority of Thailand wants cage fighting banned in the kingdom, saying it threatens Thai culture and is overly violent—something which has raised wry smiles among fight promoters who say Muay Thai is hardly for the faint-hearted. But Thailand’s sports and tourism ministry allowed the fight to go ahead.