By William Mackay: EBU light welterweight champion John Murray could very end up fighting on the December 11th undercard of the Amir Khan vs. Marcos Maidana fight against top light welterweight contender Victor Ortiz. Since Murray, 25, would be moving up in weight for this one fight, his European Boxing Union title, if chooses to keep it, won’t be on the line. It’s a fight where Murray would be showing a lot of courage to take because Ortiz is younger at 23, faster and a much bigger puncher.

Murray would get a lot of credit even if he ends up losing the fight. But most importantly, he would get a lot of visibility because the fight will be shown in both the United States and the UK. Murray is interested in taking the fight, and it really is the best fight that can be found for him on this short notice. Murray defeated Ukrainian challenger Andriy Kudriavtsev by a 9th round stoppage victory last Saturday night. Murray now wants to fight for a world title against lightweight champions Humberto Soto, Michael Katsidis and Juan Manuel Marquez.

However, none of them will be available to fight Murray anytime soon, and it’s highly unlikely that they’ll fight him because he’s not well known enough and not the mandatory challenger for any of them. If Murray and somehow defeat Ortiz, he would make a huge name for himself in the U.S. and he would almost definitely find himself fighting one of the world lightweight champions. However, beating a fighter like Ortiz is easier said than done.

Ortiz has lethal punching power, whereas Murray is the type of fighter that needs to land a lot of shots to take his opponents out. Ortiz is also a very good inside fighter and capable of generating a lot of power with short shots to the head and body. Since Murray likes to fight inside a lot, he would be getting hit with some mammoth shots from Ortiz. He would have to count on having a great chin to absorb the kinds of shots that Ortiz would be hitting him with.

It’s not impossible, as Maidana proved in his 6th round TKO win over Ortiz a year ago. However, Maidana had a huge advantage in power that Murray simply doesn’t have. It will likely take Murray twice as long as to do what Maidana did, and Murray can’t afford to take heavy shots from a big puncher like Ortiz for long without getting knocked out.