By William Mackay: EBU lightweight champion John Murray (29-0, 17 KO’s) will be defending his European Boxing Union lightweight crown on Saturday night against Andriy Kudryavtsev (34-7, 15KO’s) at the Robin Park Centre in Wigan, in a fight that will have major importance for Murray if he wants to take it to the next level and get a world title shot. Murray, 25, has been matched pretty softly in his seven year pro career and has built up an impressive looking record, although it’s filled with largely 2nd tier opponents.

Murray wants to get a shot at the winner of the November 27th world title bout between WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez and Michael Katsidis. However, it’s hard to make an argument that Murray deserves the shot over other more qualified lightweight contenders, who have much better opposition than Murray has during his career.

This fight against Kudryavtsev is case in point. Rather than take on a more dangerous opponent in the lightweight division, such as Roberto Guerrero, Murray has opted to take on the older and clearly less talented 33-year-old Kudryavtsev. The only way that Murray might get a shot at the winner of the Marquez-Katsidis fight is if he can talk his way into the bout by speaking in the media 24/7 about wanting to fight the winner of the Katsidis vs. Marquez bout.

Murray looked horrible in his last fight, beating Gary Buckland by an 11th round TKO in May. Murray showed little hand speed, average power and a tendency to get hit a lot. This is pretty much how Murray always looks, but it was disappointing if you were hoping he would have improved over performances against Lee McAllister and Youssef Al Hamidi.

Murray probably needs to stay at the European level for another two to three more years and look to improve before trying to take on fighters like Katsidis. Right now, I see Murray being slaughtered by either Katsidis or Marquez and I think it wouldn’t be a good fight for boxing fans to see. Murray is just too slow and needs to prove that he can beat other British fighters like Kevin Mitchell before he starts crowing about wanting to fight world champions.