By Sean McDaniel: Undefeated European Boxing Union lightweight champion John Murray (30-0, 18 KO’s) continued his unbeaten streak with an impressive 9th round stoppage win over his 2nd tier opponent Ukrainian Andriy Kudryavtsev (34-8, 15 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Robin Park Centre, Wigan, Lancashire. Murray, 25, had his way through most of the fight, with the exception of the 5th, 6th and 7th rounds, where Murray appeared to tire somewhat and take shots. In the 8th round, Kudryavtsev suddenly ran out of gas and was hammered for the entire round while periodically getting trapped on the ropes.

At the end of the round, Kudryavtsev looked gassed out and hurt as he went back to his corner. Between rounds, his corner tried to get some life into him but it clearly a lost cause as he was just too old at 33, and had absorbed too much punishment from Murray to mount much of a comeback effort. In the 9th, Murray blasted away at Kudryavtsev on the ropes until referee Manuel Oliver Palomo stepped in and halted the bout at 2:39 of the round.

Murray stayed on top of Kudryavtsev for most of the fight, landing short punches at close range to the head and body. Murray was very busy and threw a lot of punches in the fight. His power didn’t look that good and his hand speed was average as well. He took a lot of shots from a fighter that had no power, was old and was tailor made for Murray.

All in all, it was an okay performance from Murray. If his goal is to just focus on defending his EBU title, then he did a great job. But if he was hoping to show signs of improvement to where he could challenge and actually beat one of the lightweight champions, then I think Murray failed miserably. There was nothing in Murray’s performance that suggests that he would do anything but get blown out of he were to take on lightweight champions like Juan Manuel Marquez, Humberto Soto, and Miguel Vazquez. I think Murray would be beaten by a lot of the top lightweights in the division. Juan Diaz, for one, would have given Murray a lot of problems. And other top lightweights like Roberto Guerrero, Ali Funeka, Kevin Mitchell and Michael Katsidis look a lot better than Murray.

In other action on the card:

Joe Murray TKO 2 Richard Szebeledi
Prince Arron TKO 6 Mihaly Kotai
Paul Truscott dec 6 Zsolt Nagy
Josh Wale dec 6 Yoan Boyeaux
Phill Fury TKO 2 Terry Adams
Albert Sosnowski TKO 1 Paul Butlin