Martin Murray wants Arthur Abraham title shot

By Boxing News - 09/01/2015 - Comments

Image: Martin Murray wants Arthur Abraham title shotBy Scott Gilfoid: Bottom ranked #15 WBO fringe contender Martin Murray (31-2-1, 14 KOs) is targeting WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham for a world title shot rather than the other 168lb champions Andre Ward, Badou Jack, and James DeGale. It’s kind of not all that surprising given that the 35-year-old Abraham is seen as the weak link among the four super middleweight champions in the minds of a lot of boxing fans.

Murray has a fight this Saturday night against middleweight Jose Miguel Torres (31-6, 27 KOs) in another tune-up fight. Don’t ask me why the 32-year-old Murray is fighting a middleweight, when Murray already moved up in weight after getting stopped in the 11th round last February by IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

It seems to me that when you up in weight to the super middleweight division, you don’t go dragging middleweights up in weight to fight you at 168.

With Murray’s No.15 ranking with the World Boxing Organization, I’d say it’s going to be a long, long time before he gets ranked high enough for him to get a title shot against Abraham. There’s no money for Abraham to fight a guy like Murray in a voluntary defense, so Murray can pretty much forget all about him getting picked out specifically for a shot at the title by Abraham.

“I really I want the Arthur Abraham fight,” Murray said via ESPN.com. “Eddie Hearn was with (Kalle and Nisse Sauerland, the brothers who promote Abraham) last week, so hopefully it gets made. I doubt he would give me a voluntary defense as I’m too dangerous. So I would have to go down the route of becoming mandatory challenger in one of the governing bodies.”

At this point the old saying “beggars can’t be choosers” might apply for Murray. He’s not in the position to call the shots about which world champion he fights for a world title. Since it looks like Murray is impatient and not too keen on fighting his way to a world title shot the old fashioned way by earning it through victories over 1st tier contenders, I think Murray is going to need to take whatever he can get. That means he probably needs to lean on his promoter Eddie Hearn and try and pressure him into getting him a world title shot against IBF super middleweight belt holder James DeGale, or hope and pray that George Groves defeats WBC champion Badou Jack on September 12th so that Hearn can try and talk Groves’ promoters at Sauerland Events to let him get a crack at Groves in a voluntary defense. Goodness knows, if Murray had to try and work his way into the WBC mandatory spot by beating the likes of Gilberto Ramirez, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. or Anthony Dirrell, he’d likely be in a world of trouble.

Murray’s not a big puncher, so I don’t know where he got the dangerous part. He’s not dangerous at all. As we saw in his fight against Golovkin, Murray likes to hold and run a lot. He was holding Golovkin like mad in their fight in February, and when Murray wasn’t holding, he was running. It was an awful fight to watch because Murray acted like he didn’t come to fight. He just came to survive the full 12 rounds. Even in the 11th round, with Murray hopelessly behind on the scorecards, he was still running and stinking up the joint to no end. Golovkin finally caught up to Murray against the ropes and put him out of his misery with a flurry of shots. Murray later said that Golovkin wasn’t that hard of a puncher.

“To be honest…I thought he was going to hit a bit harder than he did,” Murray said via ESPN.co.uk. “It wasn’t so much his punching power, which is strong – don’t get me wrong, he hits well – but I was constantly on the back foot and on the ropes. Not through choice, it was just that I couldn’t really get any momentum or pressure going forward.”

As you can see, Murray was making excuses about the loss. One of the reasons why Golovkin couldn’t get the power on his shots the way he wanted to because he was so busy chasing Murray around the ring and hitting him either on the run or after he had finally stopped for a brief moment. If you make a fighter run after you for 12 rounds, they’re not going to be able to nail you as good compared to when you’re standing in the pocket and fighting them.

Murray has rebounded from his loss to Golovkin in beating two little known 3rd tier fighters George Beroshvili and Mirzet Bajrektarevic. Yeah, Murray knocked both of those guys out, but we’re talking 3rd tier opposition for Murray, not 2nd or 1st tier.

“I’m not picky over which of these guys I fight. I want them all,” Murray said. “Jose Torres is tough and I’m too experienced to overlook him. I need to go in there and do the business.”



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