By Scott Gilfoid: Middleweight contender Martin Murray (25-1-1, 11 KO’s) will be taking on a soft opponent in 39-year-old journeyman Sergey Khomitsky (28-9-2, 11 KO’s) this Saturday night in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the Carl Froch vs. George Groves card at the Phones 4u Arena in Manchester, United Kingdom.
The sad thing about the Murray-Khomitsky is that Murray already beat Khomitsky four years ago in beating him by an 8 round points decision. My question is why is Murray fighting Khomitsky when he already beat him soundly?
This is a tune-up/stay busy fight for the 31-year-old Murray. He should be able to win the fight with relative ease if he’s engaged. I say Murray should win, because he doesn’t always throw a lot of punches in his fights, and we could see an upset if Khomitsky can throw 50 punches per round to outwork Murray the way that WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez did last April in their fight in Argentina.
Murray is going to have to face WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin sooner or later, because the World Boxing Association is likely going to force the issue by ordering Murray to face Golovkin. It’ll be interesting to see what Murray does when faced with a potential knockout loss to Golovkin. Will Murray vacate his WBA interim strap or will he choose to face Golovkin and take what will likely be a one-way beating that leads to an eventual knockout loss to the hard hitting champion.
There’s not much to say about Khomitsky other than he has a lot of wins over obscure fighters, and a lot of losses each time he’s tried to step it up against halfway decent – but not great – opposition. Khomitsky has losses to Murray, Max Bursak, Lukas Konecny, Avtandil Khurtsidze, Ryan Rhodes, Mouhamed Ali Ndiaye, Golovkin, Khoren Gevor and Laszlo Szucs. The good news is that Khomitsky has won his last four fights since 2011. The bad news is he’s beaten god awful opposition, so it’s no big deal that he’s won those fights.
Murray should probably vacate his WBA interim strap because he has no chance against Golovkin, and by holding onto the interim strap, Murray is on a crash course with him and with defeat.
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