By Scott Gilfoid: #6 WBO lightweight contender Anthony Crolla (28-4-1, 11 KO’s) defeated a badly gassed out John Murray (33-3, 20 KO’s) by a 10th round TKO on Saturday night at the Phones 4u Arena in Manchester, UK. Crolla knocked down a badly bruised up Murray with a left hook to the head in the 10th round. A stumbling Murray got back up, and he was hit with a brief burst of punches from Crolla.
The referee then stepped in and halted the fight with Murray still on his feet but looking tired and hurt. Murray’s conditioning and defense betrayed him in this fight because this was a winnable fight for him.
Murray’s right eye was badly swollen up from the shots that he was hit with. In hindsight, Murray should have started off slower, used his jab more frequently and set up his body shots. Murray kept leaving his head open by going after Crolla’s body and this led to him taking a lot of punishment.
Murray started off strong in putting huge pressure on Crolla in the first five rounds and nailing him with a lot of hard body shots. Unfortunately for Murray, his gamble didn’t pay off, as Crolla kept jabbing him in the face and moving around the ring to keep Murray from setting up his offensive attack. Crolla’s movement kept him from winning rounds until the 6th. At that point in the fight Murray looked exhausted and he didn’t have enough left from the 6th round on.
Crolla keeps his WBO Inter-Continental lightweight strap with this win.
Crolla’s promoter Eddie Hearn said “I think Anthony deserves a world title shot. We’d like to match him against Richard Abril [the WBA lightweight champion]. He deserves it.”
Crolla isn’t in the same class as Abril, and if that fight happens it’s going to be bad for Crolla. Beating Murray is one thing, but Abril is a much different thing completely. Abril is too tall, too long and too hard to hit for Crolla. Abril has far too much experience for Crolla, and I see that fight as a one-sided massacre with Abril blasting him out.
Hearn would be better off matching Crolla against former WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns in order to give Burns a tune-up fight to build his confidence up. Unlike Murray, Burns won’t gas out after the 5th round, and he won’t bothered by Crolla’s running and his jab. Burns can handle stuff like that without any problems. But it sounds like Hearn doesn’t want to feed Crolla to Burns. Instead, Hearn wants to have Crolla get a title shot. I don’t know how you can say that Crolla deserves a title shot off of a win over the 2nd tier Murray, who isn’t even ranked in the top 15.
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