Martin Murray to fight on Froch-Groves card on November 23rd

By Boxing News - 11/07/2013 - Comments

murray322By Scott Gilfoid: WBA interim middleweight champion Martin Murray’s previously scheduled bout against fringe contender Garth Wood from Australia is now up in smoke due to the Shane Mosley vs. Anthony Mundine fight being rescheduled for November 27th. Murray, 31, has now been added to the undercard of the Carl Froch vs. George Groves card on November 23rd at the Phones 4u Arena in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Murray doesn’t have an opponent yet, but hopefully it’s an upgrade from Wood because Murray needs to fight someone good if he’s to have any kind of tune-up for his fight against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.

Fighting Wood would have been a waste of time for Murray, because he’s nothing like Golovkin. Actually, I see Wood as the opposite of Golovkin, and it would have just given Murray an easy fight and no help at all to get him ready for what he’s going to have to go through when he does eventually step inside the ring with Golovkin.

I’m not sure how much of a boost adding Murray to the card will do for it. I guess it depends on if they get a live body in there to face him or not. If they drag in a stiff or Murray to fight and look good against, then I think it’ll be pretty much a waste of time in adding him to the card. They need to put Murray in with someone that has a fighting chance of winning because it won’t be interesting for the fans if they find some hapless soul in a gym and sign him up to fight Murray. It’s got to be a quality opponent for fans to get excited about having Murray on the card. I’d like to see Murray fight someone like Curtis Stevens or Max Bursak. That would be a good weeding out fight so that Golovkin is battling someone that has actually been tested recently. As it is now, it’ll be kind of comical if Golovkin ends up fighting Murray with him coming off of a loss to Sergio Martinez. I don’t quite understand how or why Murray keeps getting title shots one after another. He had a chance against Felix Sturm but blew it by not doing enough, he had a chance against Sergio Martinez and blew it, and now he’s going to be getting a chance against Golovkin. This kind of reminds me how Matthew Macklin keeps getting title shots despite getting beaten left and right.

Murray was beaten by WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez by 12 round decision in his last fight last April. That was a major blow-it fight for Murray because he had a chance to win the fight because of Martinez breaking his left hand and tearing up a knee, but instead Murray stood behind a high guard for 12 rounds like a sparring partner and ended up getting beaten. It was pretty sad to watch because you expect a lot more from a challenger than what Murray showed in that fight.

Against Felix Sturm, Murray seemed to put in a good effort in getting a 12 round draw out of it in their fight in November 2011. I thought Murray lost the fight, but he definitely put in a good effort in actually throwing punches and trying hard to win. But against Sergio Martinez, Murray hid behind his guard in round after round and blew any chance he had in beating the badly injured Sergio. Had Sergio not tore up his knee and broken his left hand, I think he would have knocked Murray out. But it still very odd Murray fighting so defensively against Sergio.

The Froch-Groves card needs help in a major help because there aren’t any interesting fights on the uncard whatsoever as far as I’m concerned. Here’s all that they’ve got:

Martin Gethin vs. Anthony Crolla
Scott Quigg vs. Diego Oscar Silva
Rocky Fielding vs. Lennox Allen
Anthony Joshua vs. Hector Alfredo Avila
Scott Cardle vs. TBA
Jamie McDonnell vs. TBA



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