By Scott Gilfoid: #4 WBC, #6 IBF, #13 WBO middleweight contender Martin Murray (27-1-1, 12 KO’s) will be fighting #8 WBA Max Bursak (29-2-1, 12 KO’s) in a slight step up fight for the 31-year-old Murray on June 21st in Monte Carlo. Murray is still being taken slowly after his loss to WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, and it seems that they’re going to take the safe route with him after Murray won a controversial 8 round majority decision against journeymen Sergey Khomitsky last December.
In some boxing fans’ eyes, Murray lost that fight. Perhaps a knee jerk reaction, Murray was matched against a little known journeyman named Ishmael Tetteh this past week. Murray won the fight by a 6th round stoppage, but he again failed to impress and looked lost at times when taking head shots against the smaller-looking fighter.
It’s interesting that Murray is being matched against the 29-year-old Bursak instead of a quality fighter, because Bursak is coming off of a loss to Jarrod Fletcher in his last fight in February. It seems to me that if they want to match Murray against someone in the class of Bursak, they should at least match him against the guy that just finished beating him, don’t you think?
If the idea is to get Murray ready for a future fight against WBA welterweight champion Gennady Golovkin, then they should be matching him against better opposition that can get him ready for what Murray will be facing once he gets inside the ring with Golovkin. With Bursak’s KO percentage of 37.5, he’s not nearly powerful enough to get Murray ready for a puncher like Golovkin. Murray should be fighting guys like Daniel Jacobs or Marco Antonio Rubio if he wants to get ready for the punching power that Golovkin has.
In addition to his loss to Fletcher, Bursak was also beaten by Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam in the past. As far as his best wins, Bursak has victories over Nick Blackwell, Prince Arron, Julien Marie Sainte, Brian Vera, Sergey Khomitsky and Giovanni De Carolis. In other words, no one that you can really call a good middleweight.
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