John Murray has no chance against Brandon Rios on Saturday

By Boxing News - 11/29/2011 - Comments

Image: John Murray has no chance against Brandon Rios on SaturdayBy Scott Gilfoid: I know former EBU lightweight champ John Murray (31-1, 18 KO’s) wants to conquer America and emulate some of the things that his fellow countryman Ricky Hatton did when he briefly held the WBA World welterweight title after beating American Luis Collazo in 2007, but it’s not going to happen I hate to say. Murray is facing WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (28-0-1, 21 KO’s) on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Rios is ranked #2 behind Juan Manuel Marquez in the lightweight division, and this isn’t a paper champion we’re talking about. Hatton beat Collazo, but he wasn’t in the same league as other top welterweights Floyd Mayweather Jr or Shane Mosley at the time. Rios is a monster of a champion, and Murray is way, way over his head in this fight. Believe me, Murray won’t be conquering anything in this fight. He’s going to be kissing the canvas and counted out in short order.

The only real question about this Saturday’s fight is how much punishment Murray can soak up before he goes down or has the plug pulled out from him by his corner or the referee. I suspect Murray won’t last more than four rounds tops. His head will be just sitting there just begging to be imploded by Rio’s shots, and without head movement, a tight guard or the ability to move around the ring, Murray will be like a giant pinata for Rios to bat around. It’s going to be kind of gory and not for the feint of heart, but that’s the reality of the situation. Murray isn’t going to be Rocky type story on Saturday night.

Murray is going to be a statistic in Rio’s knockout category. Murray looked beyond terrible in his last fight against Kevin Mitchell in getting stopped in the 8th round, and the thing is, Mitchell would be easy fodder for Rios. This fight is going to be a slaughter of epic proportions on Saturday. All I know is Murray is going to have a long plane flight back home to England after this fight and it’s not going to be a pleasant one I can imagine. A lot of soul searching will likely be done.



Comments are closed.