By Johnny Welly: Martin Murray is fast becoming the most avoided fighter in the country. Since pulling of an impressive draw against Felix Sturm in December, the St Helens man and his management team have struggled to capitalize and build on his performance through no fault of their own.
The fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr was signed and sealed until Murray’s past came back to haunt him and visa complications meant he could not travel to the U.S and had to withdraw from the fight. Then along came Mathew Macklin with some big words to say on twitter only to withdraw from negotiations on the last minute even though he was offered a purse rumoured to be equal or even more than that he received for his unsuccessful world title fight with Sturm!
In Macklin’s defence, I believe it was his management that asked him to withdraw as he has impressed in America and he can go there and most probably get in line for another voluntary world title shot where as if he fought Murray with the very real possibility of getting beaten his career would surely be over.
With the Macklin fight not happening this left Murray to take on the lightly regarded French man Karim Achour in a “keep busy” fight. The kind of fight Team Murray aren’t really interested in but with the management team working effortlessly behind the scenes to secure fights at the top level with no avail there was little in the way of other options.
Now once again we see Murray and his team trying to secure a big fight before the end of the year in the way of Darren Barker, with the twitter rumour mill starting up that Hatton Promotions have offered a large amount to Matchroom for the fight only for Eddie Hearn to reply with a counter offer. One thing is for sure, Martin Murray is willing to fight anyone and would love to fight Barker, with the 2 fighters sharing very respectful tweets in the past Barker has also stated he would love the fight also, therefore it appears it’s in the hands of the promoters to strike a deal with Eddie Hearn believing to have the upper hand with his exclusive Sky Sports coverage. However, should the rumours of a Ricky Hatton comeback be true then the possibility of Murray v Barker on the undercard would surely blow the viewing figures and worldwide exposure that Sky Sports would bring straight out of the water.
Murray v Barker is a genuine fight and it appears the only person who isn’t too keen is Eddie Hearn. After all he did make an offer for the fight many months ago only to receive a counter offer and then go quiet, maybe he thought the Murray camp wouldn’t want the fight? It seems all the Murray camp want are the big fights and see no reason for martin to have stay busy fights as he’s an established world class fighter and wants to stay at that level, although his willingness to fight anyone has exposed Mathew Macklin and his talk and fight fans can only live in hope he’s not about to expose Darren Barker as the same.
Barker fights September 6th in what can only be described as a warm up fight which due to his lay off with injury is understandable, so with Hatton Promotions eager to make the fight and making big money offers and Matchroom now making counter offers there is no reason (providing the promoters can put their ego’s aside) as to why the fight shouldn’t happen by the end of the year? The same situation happened previously only for Eddie to go quiet and stating on twitter that it was the wrong time for the fight to happen.
Yes, boxing is a business but the rumoured purse on offer is a substantial amount more than either fighter will earn having ‘warm ups’ and ‘tick overs’ whilst waiting around for another voluntary crack at a world title. Murray is the highest ranked of the three middleweights so would it not make sense for Barker to want Murray as much as Murray wants him? All the world titles are tied up for the time being with unification fights and many people believe a Murray v Barker fight is worthy of a world title but the bottom line is the fight is red hot right now….big fights can very easily lose there shine so strike while the iron is hot, Murray wants it, Barker wants it, Hatton Promotions want it, does Eddie Hearn really want it???? #whoknows ;-)
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