By Sean McDaniel: EBU lightweight champion John Murray (30-0, 18 KO’s) is still bitterly complaining about his lost opportunity to fight Kevin Mitchell (31-1, 23 KO’s) on the April 2nd card at the Wembley Arena. It’s still exactly known why the fight fell apart, but it’s clearly not because of 26-year-old Murray not wanting the fight.

This was a bout that Murray really wanted, and was hoping to use it to be able to show his talent to the boxing world. Now, Murray will have to be satisfied with possibly facing Gavin Rees or Alex Arthur as alternatives. The Rees fight might not be all that bad, but a fight against Arthur might not excite fans nearly as much.

Murray said this in an article at the Manchester Evening News today: “I was ready to fight him on his own patch. It would have been a huge fight and a world title eliminator. I’m the best lightweight in Britain and I’m willing to prove that against anyone. I wanted to fight Amir Khan but he chose to fight someone else and now Kevin Mitchell doesn’t fancy it either.”

You can’t exactly blame Mitchell if he or one of his team didn’t think this was the right moment for this fight. After all, Mitchell hasn’t fought in almost a year after being stopped in the 3rd round by Michael Katsidis. Mitchell also had eye surgery, and that’s something that would make you think that might cause Mitchell to be less than 100% in his first fight back. Given all those things, you could understand it if Mitchell or one of his team members didn’t feel this was the right time for the fight. However, there’s talk that Mitchell might possibly still make this fight. It doesn’t look good right now but there is a small chance.

Murray is ranked #3 by the WBC. He’s close to getting a fight in the future with the WBC champion Humberto Soto. That would be a great fight. I don’t think Murray would win, but it would be interesting while it lasted. Murray would have virtually zero chance of beating WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez. He’s much too good for Murray, and I also think Katsidis would be too strong for Murray as well.