Weights: Quigg-Martinez, Perez-Crolla & Murray-Bajretarevic

By Boxing News - 07/17/2015 - Comments

crolla2(Photo credit: Thompson Boxing) By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated WBA “regular” super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg (30-0-2, 22 KOs) made weight on Friday for his title defense against #11 WBA fringe contender Kiko Martinez (32-5, 24 KOs) for their fight this Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK.

Quigg weighed in at 121.75lbs. His opponent came in at 121.6. It’s difficult to get really excited about the Quigg-Martinez match-up because Martinez has beaten twice by Carl Frampton. I’m not sure what the purpose was in Quigg’s promoter Eddie Hear matching him against an opponent who has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights in Martinez, but whatever the case it’s not interesting.

Instead of matching Quigg against a guy who is losing left and right like Kiko Martinez, Hearn should be doing his job and putting Quigg in with the real 122lb champion in the division in Guillermo Rigondeaux. If Quigg can’t beat him, then he doesn’t deserve to be holding a paper title like he is now. I’ll never understand match-making like this.

Why put Quigg in with a guy whose career is floundering like Martinez when you’ve got a ton of talented fighters in the 122lb division that you can match him up against?

Martinez does have a one-fight winning streak going after beating some guy named George Gachechiladze in his last fight. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this fighter before, but at least Martinez stopped losing for a brief moment.

In other fights on the card, WBA “regular” lightweight champion Darleys Perez (32-1, 20 KOs) came in at 134.5lbs at the weigh-in for his title defense against #11 WBA fringe contender Anthony Crolla (29-4-2 11 KOs) from Britain. Crolla weighed in at 134.5lbs as well. This is a fight in which Perez is making a simple voluntary defense against a bottom feeder in Crolla.

I can understand Perez wanting to get in an easy title defense while making an optional defense. I’m not sure that I’d pick a spoiler like Crolla out as an opponent if I were Perez. I think someone like Derry Mathews would be a lot more interesting selection for Perez, because at least with Mathews, he’d come to fight and wouldn’t be running and holding all night long like Crolla will likely be doing.

Crolla has an ugly fighting style that is difficult to really appreciate. He also has a bunch of losses on his resume, and should arguably have an additional two defeats on top of the existing ones. Perez will win this fight easily, but he might have to chase Crolla around the ring before he puts him out of his misery.

Former three division world title challenger Martin Murray (30-2-1, 13 KOs) weighed in at 169 pounds for his eight round fight against little known Mirzet Bajretarevic (14-3, 8 KOs).

Bajretarevic weighed in at 171.5. This was supposed to be a super middleweight match-up, but it looks like Murray will be fighting at light heavyweight for this fight.

Ranked No.1 by the WBC, Murray wants to get a big money fight against one of the world champions in the near future. He’s hoping to face George Groves if he beats Badou Jack, IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale or the winner of this Saturday’s fight between WBO 168lb champion Arthur Abraham and Robert Stieglitz.

I can’t say that Murray deserves a title shot against anybody right now. I mean, he was whipped last February by WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, and since then, Murray has had a mismatch against an unknown fighter from Georgia and now he’s about to have another mismatch.

I don’t know what the holdup is for Murray. Heck, he can fight a 100 over-matched opponents, and he still won’t rate another title shot in my eyes. He’s a three-time failure in fighting for world titles, and I think it’s time that he actually earn a shot instead of getting the title shots off the backs of easy opposition.



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