By Sean McDaniel: Newly crowned European Boxing Union (EBU) lightweight champion John Murray (29-0, 17 KO’s) wants a fight against either WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan or unbeaten lightweight contender Kevin Mitchell, according to the latest news. Murray, 25, is coming off an 11th round stoppage win over Gary Buckland last Friday night at the Kingsway Leisure Centre, in Cheshire, England. It was a workmanlike performance from the 25-year-old Murray but not one that would lead me to believe that he could beat Mitchell or Khan.
Murray may have the physical strength and chin to make a decent go of it against Khan and Mitchell, but he doesn’t have the hand speed, power or the defense needed to beat those fighters in my estimation. Murray looked slow against Buckland, and showed a nasty habit of standing straight up in close, throwing lots of body shots and uppercuts, but leaving himself wide open for Buckland’s shots.
Murray was able to beat Buckland down eventually with his high work rate, but it wasn’t an impressive performance by any means. Khan and Mitchell are different fighters. They tend to fight on the outside, move a lot and rarely stand in close. Even if they both stood next to Murray all night long and fought his kind of fight, I still think they would beat him because of their better power and hand speed. Murray needs to make some changes in his offense and try to pick up some movement and power.
He may have beaten Buckland last Friday night, but I think he would be mincemeat if he were able to get a fight with Khan and Mitchell. The chances of Murray getting fight against either would seem to be very slim at this point. Khan is looking to go after the top light welterweights in the division in the future, provided he gets by Paulie Malignaggi this Saturday night. And Mitchell is taking on the hard hitting Michael Katsidis this Saturday night.
If Mitchell is able to get by Katsidis, then he’ll possibly be fighting the WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez next. Unfortunately, there isn’t really any time for either fighter to entertain fight against the EBU lightweight champion. Besides, it would be a backwards move for both Mitchell and Khan. They need to be going after top ranked word class athletes not European champions.
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