Will Martin Murray recover from the beating GGG put on him?

By Boxing News - 02/23/2015 - Comments

1-IMG_7277 - copia(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Scott Gilfoid: A day after he absorbed a vicious beating at the hands of WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Martin Murray is being applauded by many boxing fans for having lasted 11 rounds last Saturday night in getting stopped in the 11th round in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

The was stopped in the 11th round by referee Luis Pabon after Golovkin blasted Murray with a left-right combination that snapped Murrays head back. The fight had to be stopped because Murray could no longer defend himself.

Murray took a lot of punishment over the course of the fight, and it was surprising that the fight wasn’t halted earlier. I mean, Murray took an awful amount of punishment in the fight, and it was really brutal to watch.

The kind of punishment that Murray absorbed in the fight can sometimes shorten a fighters’ career. As such, while it may seem like a positive that Murray was able to extend the fight until the 11th and force Golovkin into the later rounds, it might not have been a good thing for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-MCYF-cxgE

The question now is whether Murray’s beat down will have a lasting effect on his career and finish him as a top level fighter. We’ve seen some of Golovkin’s previous knockout victims Grzegorz Proksa and Gabriel Rosado never looking the same after he handled them. Will this be the fate of Murray?

It would have been a smart thing for Murray’s trainer to throw in the towel in the 5th round when the fight really started to get out of hand. Murray took a lot of hard head shots in the 5th, and ended up with bloody nose.

Murray would later take a ton of hard shots in both the 8th and 10th rounds. By that point in the fight, Murray was doing little more than running and landing soft shots that Golovkin had no respect for.

Murray tried to avoid Golovkin’s big power shots by using constant movement. He was fighting smart to keep out of range of Golovkin for the most part, but Golovkin kept cutting off the ring and trapping him against the ropes long enough to nail him with some vicious head shots.

Murray would then take off running again, but Golovkin would then trap him on the other side of the ring to land some big powerhouse punches to the head and body. It was all very predictable by that point in the fight.

I’d hate to see this fight as being the end for Murray as a top fighter, but I also wouldn’t be surprised at all if this is it for him. I mean, not only did Golovkin land a lot of head shots that could potentially make it easier to knock Murray out in the future, but he also created a blue print in how to beat Murray by putting constant pressure on him and hitting him hard.

I’m pretty sure that Murray’s promoter will be careful in how he matches him just like he was in building him back up after his loss to Sergio Martinez.

So I don’t expect Murray to be fighting any live bodies for the next two years while he waits for another world title shot, but at the same time I can see Murray even struggling against the B and C level opposition that he’s put in with.

It’s doubtful that we’ll be able to see how much Murray lost from the Golovkin fight until he’s eventually put in with class opponent, and unfortunately, I don’t see that happening until he gets another crack at a world title, possibly in 2017.

I definitely don’t see Murray getting another title shot in 2015, and probably not in 2016 as well, unless he can become a mandatory challenger again.



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