Martin Murray only has himself to blame for loss to Sergio Martinez

By Boxing News - 04/28/2013 - Comments

martinez14By Scott Gilfoid: A day after Martin Murray’s 12 round unanimous decision loss to WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Murray’s loyal fan are pitching a fit and crying about how Murray got jobbed by the three judges that gave the fight to Martinez.

Unfortunately, the person that Murray’s fans should be blaming is Murray himself. He was facing a 38-year-old fighter in Martinez, who can no longer fight at a fast pace without breaking down from one type of injury or another. There’s no excuse at all for Murray not fighting at a fast pace to push the tempo to wear Martinez down.

The entire boxing world knew this ahead of time that Martinez would likely break down if Murray fought all out for 12 rounds, but you saw what Murray did. He hid behind his turtles shell defense, looking too timid to come out of his shell until late in the fight when things were looking bleak for him.

Murray was behind on all three of the judges’ scorecards after 8 rounds, and even then the guy fought like he was walking on eggshells. The fight was there to be won for Murray, but he failed to turn it up a gear and come out of his turtle shell den.

No doubt Murray must have been feeling some fear about possibly getting knocked out like some of Martinez’s past opponent, so he wasn’t going to stick his neck out and try and wear the 38-year-old Martinez out the way he should have. As the challenger, you don’t hide behind your guard for 12 rounds, shooting out rare punches. That’s a loser’s way of fighting and guaranteed to lose.

The judges scored the fight 115-112, 115-112, 115-112. I thought those scores were far too generous for Murray because he did absolutely zero until he scored the flash knockdown in the 8th round. He was just hiding behind his guard like Martinez was a one-punch knockout artist.

I imagine Murray must feel pretty awful today knowing that he didn’t go all-out to try and win the fight and basically blew his chance. Murray worked hard and got beat and now he’ll be lucky if he can get another title shot in the next two years. You can’t expect his ranking to stay the same after this loss. He’s currently ranked #1 by the WBA, but you can bet he’ll slip in the rankings now.

I think WBA champion Gennady Golovkin would give Murray a huge beating if that fight were to take place because Golovkin wouldn’t stay out on the outside like Martinez did. He’d get right up on Murray and force him to fight on the inside where Golovkin is a much, much better fighter and much stronger. Murray would take a beating from Golovkin. As such, perhaps it’s for the best that Murray lost to Martinez because it may save him from getting a hiding from Golovkin.



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