By Scott Gilfoid: On February 21st, trainer Abel Sanchez expects his fighter WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs) to pick up his 20th consecutive knockout when he faces England’s Martin Murray (29-1-1, 12 KOs) in their fight in Monte Carlo.

Sanchez has a ton of respect for the huge Murray, who looks more like a super middleweight in size rather than a middleweight, but he feels that Murray will be knocked out none the less.

Sanchez says that if Murray comes to fight instead of just cover up, he’ll get knocked out quickly by Golovkin well before the 5th. But if he plays possum and hides behind his guard like he did against Sergio Martinez, then Sanchez sees the fight lasting until the 5th round.

“He’s got 19 knockouts in a row. He’ll have 20 if everything goes well on the 21st. We’re taking him [Murray] very, very serious. If Gennady disposes with him it won’t be because Murray wasn’t that,” Sanchez said via Fighthype.com.

It’s definitely possible that Murray could end Golovkin’s 19-fight knockout streak, but I think it’s going to take a pure defensive effort with Murray in going into his clam-shell and staying there for the entire 12 rounds instead of him making an effort to try and win the fight.

If Murray comes out of his clam-shell, he’s going to take a big head shot and likely pitch forward onto his face for the 10 count. Even if Murray fights purely defensively like he did in his loss to the one-legged Sergio Martinez in 2013, Murray is going to take some big body shots and likely get knocked out in that manner.

If Golovkin can continue to score knockouts at this rate, he’s going to be a pay-per-view attraction in the United States before long. It’s nice that he’s been able to score knockouts over guys like Daniel Geale, Marco Antonio Rubio, and Curtis Stevens, but Golovkin has got to be able to prove that he can do it against the better fighters in the division.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gELLBDifMDg

I don’t rate Murray as being any better than those guys, so he really doesn’t count as being one of the better fighters. I’m talking about Golovkin proving he can beat guys like Miguel Cotto, David Lemieux, Peter Quillin, Daniel Jacobs and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. I know Canelo is technically a junior middleweight, but he has the same size as Golovkin, so I rate him as a middleweight who chooses to fight at junior middleweight.

Murray will need to show a part of his game that I’ve never seen before for him to have a chance of beating Golovkin and ending his long KO streak. First off, Murray will need to show that he has punching power to compete against Golovkin, because his 12 knockouts on his resume shows pretty clearly that Murray isn’t a puncher. Secondly, Murray will need to show a ton of mobility against Golovkin for him to survive the full 12 rounds. In other words, Murray will need to be able to run for three minutes of every round for the full 12 rounds for him to survive. I don’t think Murray can do this, I really don’t.