Martin Murray expects to take Arthur Abraham’s title on Saturday

By Boxing News - 11/16/2015 - Comments

murray1(Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig) By Scott Gilfoid: After coming up empty on three prior world title challenges, #10 WBO fringe contender Martin Murray (32-2-1, 15 KOs) will be attempting to end his run of bad luck this Saturday night against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (43-4, 29 KOs) on 11/21 at the TUI Arena in beautiful Hannover, Germany.

The 32-year-old Murray explains that the reason why he got beaten or held to a draw in his previous three attempts at a world title was because he wasn’t ready and in his prime like he is now, but right now he feels he’s at his very best.

It’s unclear why Murray still ended up getting whipped in his last world title challenge just nine months ago in his 11th round knockout loss to Gennady Golovkin last February. Needless to say, that was not a good performance from Murray, as he squandered his opportunity by running around the ring for 11 rounds, holding and just trying to put off the inevitable rather than trying to win.

Golovkin finally got tired of Murray’s awful running and holding and put him out of his misery in the 11th round when he caught him against the ropes to take him out. Golovkin later said that he could have knocked Murray out earlier in the fight, but he wanted to get some rounds in. I guess that might explain why Murray said afterwards that Golovkin wasn’t as big a puncher as he thought he would be.

‘’Abraham is a great champion and I’m expecting a tough fight but I just feel that the timing is right for me now,’’ Murray said. ‘’I think my first World title fight against Sturm may have come a little bit too early. I jumped straight from domestic to world level, so even though there was an argument to say I won that fight, I think it came to soon for me.”

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I think the timing isn’t right for Murray to beat Abraham. I think Abraham is looking very, very good as of late, and much better than he did in his first fight with Paul Smith and in his fights against Giovanni De Carolis, Nikola Sjekloca and Willbeforce Shihepo.

Abraham’s German trainer has him throwing more punches and putting a lot more pressure on his opponents than he used to do before. It’s as if they’ve studied Golovkin’s fights and are basically aping his fighting style by putting constant pressure on their opponents. To me, Abraham looks 100% better than he was before, and I don’t know a light hitter like Murray is going to be able to survive for long with the way he’s fighting now.

Even if Murray chooses to hold and run like mad, I don’t think he’s going to be able to put off the eventual knockout loss. Murray doesn’t have the power or the chin top stand in the pocket against a puncher like Abraham, and he’s not going to be able to run his way to a victory. It won’t work in Germany.

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If Murray resorts to going back to his old clam-shell defense that he’s used in the past in fights against guys like Sergio Martinez, it’s safe to say that Abraham will pull out his old clam-shell opener and give Murray a vicious beating of his life. Abraham will pry open Murray’s clam-shell with punches around the sides and to the midsection that will cause Murray clam-shell to crumble to pieces, resulting in hiom being knocked out cold in front of a packed house at the TUI Arena in Hannover, Germany.

‘’Arthur has looked great in his last two performances,’’ said Murray. ‘’I think I’ll be facing the best Arthur Abraham on Saturday night. I don’t think he is going to overlook me.”

Murray has bounced back from his loss to Golovkin by beating the following obscure third tier fighters: Jose Miguel Torres, Mirzet Bajrektarevic and George Beroshvili. What’s interesting about those fights is that Murray appeared to abandon his dull clam-shell fighting style to become more like Golovkin in attacking his opponents without abandon.

Like Abraham, it appears that Murray studied Golovkin’s fighting style and used that to beat those three mediocre fighters. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to work well for Murray to attack Abraham on Saturday the way he went after those three poor opponents because he would be going straight into the teeth of Abraham’s offense and will likely be ground up and canned for an appetizer by the German fighter.



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