By Scott Gilfoid: Former three time world title challenger Martin Murray (30-2-1, 13 KOs) will be back inside the ring next month against an opponent still to be determined on July 18th on the undercard of the title clash between WBA World super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg vs. former IBF 122lb champ Kiko Martinez at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK.
Unbeaten #2 WBC heavyweight contender Anthony Joshua has been pulled off the July 18th card and will be inserted on the September 12th Kell Brook vs. Brandon Rios card at the O2 Arena in London, UK. There’s no word about who Joshua will be fighting on that date.
Murray’s last fight against George Beroshvili (19-6-2, 12 KOs) on June 26th was so easy that he won the bout in 2 rounds without really even getting hit at all in the fight. He stopped Beroshvili with a left to the body in his super middleweight debut. With the fight being pretty much a waste of time due to the fact that he was facing a guy that didn’t belong in the ring with him, Murray will be back at it again on 7/18.
I would like to think that Murray will be stepped up against a higher class opponent for this fight, but that’s doubtful. With only two and half weeks to go before his July 18th fight, you can pretty much assume that Murray will be fighting another Beroshvili type of an opponent. The good news if you’re a Murray fan is he’s likely to win.
The bad news is he’s not going to get anything out of beating a scrub type opponent. If the 32-year-old Murray wants to fight in the 168lb division to try and reinvent his sagging career, then he needs to be fighting guys like Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell and Gilberto Ramirez.
“It’s great to be busy and getting another fight so quickly,” Murray said via ESPN.com. “I think that getting built correctly like I will at Matchroom, I’ll be getting these big domestic fights that are out there in the super middleweight division in Britain.”
Murray has started repeating himself about him feeling like he’s now being built correctly with his career. However, I really don’t think it matters. Murray would have been a star in the past if he’d beaten the world champions he faced, but instead he failed.
That’s just the way it is. Instead of beating former champions Felix Sturm, Sergio Martinez and Gennady Golovkin, Murray was either beaten or held to a draw. Murray can talk about the importance of him being built up right now that he’s with Eddie Hearn and his Matchroom Sport stable with his contract with Sky Sports, but you can’t say that Murray wouldn’t have been a star with his previous promoter if he’d won the fights that he needed to. I don’t see anything changing in that regard.
Hearn can match Murray perfectly against guys with no chance like Beroshvili, but if Murray can’t beat the champions like Badou Jack, Andre Ward, James DeGale, and Arthur Abraham, then it really doesn’t matter.
“I want to fight the best out there. When I retire I want to be able to say that I fought the best in the divisions I boxed in and that I never swerved a fight,” Murray said.
Okay, well if Murray wants to fight the best out there, then he really shouldn’t be fighting the likes of Beroshvili, should he? Murray needs to start fighting the Dirrell brothers and Andre Ward and show that he can actually fight the best out there rather than just talking about it and then not doing it.
Also on the July 18th card is WBA World lightweight champion Darleys Perez defending his WBA strap against contender Anthony Crolla.
Comments are closed.