By Ian Aldous: After taking Felix Sturm (36-2-2) to the limit on December 2nd 2011 in Mannheim, Germany for the WBA Super World middleweight title, undefeated British and Commonwealth champion, Martin Murray has truly established himself on the World stage.
The bout was drawn and the closeness of the fight has been echoed by the many fans and experts declaring that both men had cases for winning the fight. Martin now hopes to keep the momentum going and push on with his career.
You’ve had almost two months to reflect on the fight with Felix Sturm. How do you feel about it now when you look back?
MM “It were first time on that stage and that level and it was just about showing people that we belonged there and I think we did that. It was a great learning fight for me, you know and I’ve got no complaints about the decision and there’s no point whingeing about it. It was a close fight and that’s what it was. I just learnt loads from it and I’m hopefully gonna go on to bigger and better fights for the rest of my career now.”
Is there any possibility of a rematch with Felix? There was a lot of talk about a rematch after the fight but it seems to have quietened down now.
MM “Yeah, it was when he first put the date out for his next fight, at first we thought he was trying to unify and we thought, fair enough and that’s why we haven’t got the mention but then we found out he’s in talks with Andy Lee and he wasn’t unifying, so we’re a bit disappointed that we never got the chance for the rematch.”
We’ve heard a lot of talk recently about a potential fight with fellow domestic middleweight and World title challenger, Darren Barker. Do you expect this fight to happen?
MM “Eddie Hearn (Barker’s promoter) has said that he wants Barker to go in for a World title, I mean I’d love the fight to happen but I don’t know if it is gonna happen to be honest with you.”
It must be satisfying that even though you didn’t get the decision, you showed the fact that you can compete at World level despite the fans/experts that doubted you could before the fight.
MM “Yeah, there was a lot of people that didn’t give me a cat in hell’s chance! It was only the people that knew me, you know, the gym lads, people who knew me proper that genuinely gave me a good chance of going over there and beating him, so it’s always good to prove people wrong. To be honest with you, most people who were doubting me were people who’ve never believed in me anyway or never liked me, so it’s always nice to prove people wrong but like you just said, we showed we belonged at that level and it’s onwards and upwards now. We just hope we can get a big fight but I’ve only been a pro for 4 years, so I know my time will come again and I’ve got plenty more years left in me.”
You’re 29 years of age, do you feel that you’re at your peak now and did the opportunity to step up to World level arrive at the perfect time?
MM “I mean, I wouldn’t have said the perfect time because that was only my second time (going 12 rounds), so maybe a couple more 12-rounders, couple more rounds under my belt but we knew that we belonged at that level for a long time and it was just about getting myself to show it. I mean, it came at a good time for me, the right time and it was against a good champion who we thought we could go over and take him out. We said that if the same Sturm turned up, you know if I’d have got the fight before me when he fought Macklin then I’d have stopped that Sturm and I’m really confident that would’ve happened but Oliver (Martin’s trainer) predicted that we’d get a better Sturm and he even said himself it’d been the best training camp he’d had in 10 years, it was a better Sturm. I’ve always said that if I get built correctly, you know, one step at a time, that I’ll get better even if it means coming back down a bit. It doesn’t seem like I’m getting any more World title fights, even if it just means me dropping back down to re-build myself back up, I know I’ll eventually get there (World level).”
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