RICKY BURNS has revealed that life under new promoter Eddie Hearn has put the smile back on his face.

As exclusively revealed in later editions of yesterday's SportTimes, the WBO lightweight champion will defend his title against big-hitting Puerto Rican Jose A Gonzalez, at the Emirates Arena, Glasgow, on Saturday, May 11.

Hearn flew up to Glasgow and fronted a press conference at the Marriott Hotel to break the news and Burns says that kind of personal touch has put him at ease after seeing three previous fights under former promoter Frank Warren fail to materialise.

But with almost nine months elapsing by the time he gets in the ring with his unbeaten mandatory challenger Burns admits he will need to be at his best to prevail.

The champion said: "I have complete faith in Eddie and the fact that he flew up to Glasgow for the press conference only a few hours after he got Gonzalez's name on the contract tells you everything you want to know about him.

"From my point of view it is just great to have a face in my mind when I go into training again. But Eddie wants to put me on in Glasgow where I belong and I am just very excited about the prospect.

"At the same time you look at the Gonzalez record and he is the unbeaten, No.1 challenger and he has 16 knock-outs from 22 fights.

"So there is no way I can or will take him lightly. This is a tough fight against arguably the best guy I will have faced yet and I will need to produce my best. There has been a lot of disappointment for me over the last six months with fights falling through, but I have stayed in shape and come May 11, I will be ready to go."

Hearn's belief in Burns and his hunger to re-launch the champion in Glasgow towards a string of big fights was palpable.

The ebullient Matchroom supremo had no qualms in pinpointing victory over Gonzalez as the key to the land of milk and honey.

Hearn said: "Ricky doesn't need easy fights right now. Quite frankly when you are the champion you should be in fights that go with that territory and Gonzalez is certainly that level of opposition. The WBO made him Rick's mandatory and they did so because he is 22 and 0 and has put away 16 of these guys early.

"It was a bit tight to get things done inside the deadline they imposed on us but we did so with a couple of hours to spare and now we have Gonzalez he is the launch-pad to the big fights. Down the line we want Ricky built up to such a level that we can realistically look at bringing the likes of Adrien Broner to Glasgow in a unification fight.

"But first Ricky must take care of Gonzalez. This is the start of an exciting time for Ricky and for Scottish boxing."