Weights: Abraham 168, Murray 166.25

By Boxing News - 11/20/2015 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: #10 WBO challenger Martin Murray (32-2-1, 15 KOs) weighed in successfully at 166.25lbs on Friday for his title shot against WBO super middleweight Arthur Abraham (43-4, 29 KOs) for their fight on Saturday night at the TUI Arena in Hannover, Germany. For his part, the 35-year-old Abraham came in at 168lbs exactly on the super middleweight limit.

Believe it or not, this is Murray’s fourth world title shot in the last four years, and possibly his last. I can’t see Murray continuing to get world title shots endlessly like this because it’s starting to look forlorn with him fighting for titles, losing and then getting other shots almost straightaway.

It kind of reminds me of how Matthew Macklin kept getting title shots over and over and over again despite the fact that he was losing each time. Like Macklin, Murray has bellyached about some of the decisions in those fights. Murray thinks he deserved the decisions over Felix Sturm in 2011 and Sergio Martinez in 2013.

Having seen both of those fights, I think Murray clearly deserved the loss in the Martinez fight, and I think he should have lost the fight against Sturm too, which was scored a draw. The problem that Murray had in both of those fights is that he didn’t throw nearly enough punches in order to impress the judges enough to win the fight.

Instead of letting his hands go in order to win the fights, Murray hid behind his clam-shell guard all night long and wound up not doing enough to get the decisions. Granted, Murray fought hard in the 12th round of both fights, but he sure as heck wasn’t going to pull out a victory in those fights by fighting hard in the 12t round instead of the entire fights.

“It’s my time. I’m at my natural weight and I’m looking forward to it,” Murray told skysports.com. “In his [Abraham] last two performances, he’s looked good but I feel I’m getting into my prime. Timing is everything in boxing. There has been dodgy decisions in the way, but everything happens for a reason, and tomorrow is going to be my night, that and movement,” Murray said. “He nicks rounds, but I’m going to stay a little bit more busy.”

The decisions that didn’t go Murray’s way in fights against Sergio Martinez and Felix Sturm weren’t “dodgy” decisions. Those were fights that Murray didn’t deserve to win because he flat out didn’t do enough to win them. If Murray would have just come from behind his clam-shell defense to throw some punches for a change, he might have won those fights. But he hid too much behind his clam-shell and that’s why he came up short in those fights.

Murray has been insisting lately that he’ll be a better fighter now because he’s moving up in weight from the middleweight division. Murray feels that he’ll be stronger now that he’s in the 168lb division, and it will mean that he’s not feeling the negative effects from having had to work hard to make weight for the 160lb division.

I think that’s just a convenient excuse for Murray, a foxhole for him to hide from reality. I think the reality is that Murray doesn’t have the punching power, the work rate, hand speed or the chin to beat the better fighters at 160 and definitely not 168.

My prediction is that Murray won’t be any better at 168 than he was at 160. Once Murray starts feeling Abraham’s big power shots, I expect him to take off running like he did in his fight against Gennady Golovkin earlier this year.

“Work-rate is the key,” Murray said.

Work-rate is definitely the key to beating Abraham, as Andre Dirrell skillfully showed. However, you have to avoid getting hit by Abraham, because if he brains Murray with his big shots, then this fight could be over with quickly on Saturday night.



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