By Scott Gilfoid: #4 WBC, #6 IBF, #13 WBO, Martin Murray (26-1-1, 11 KO’s) will be in action this Wednesday against journeyman Ishmael Tetteh (29-10-2, 16 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round fight at the Emperors Palace, Kempton Park, Gauteng, South Africa. For the 31-year-old Murray this is another rebuilding fight to get him ready for an eventual title shot against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin at some point in the future.
When Murray will be stepping it up again is hard to say, as Golovkin is a busy fighter and has bigger fights to take than to face someone who was recently beaten by WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez.
Murray, 31, would really help himself if he would stop fighting fodder and start facing some actual quality again, but after the close call that he had in his last fight against 39-year-old journeyman Sergey Khomitsky, it looks like Murray doesn’t want to take any chances that he might get beaten. Murray beat Khomitsky by a controversial 8 round points decision last December in winning by a 77-75 score in a fight that took place in London, UK. I thought Murray fought well enough to lose by a couple of points, but I wasn’t surprised to see him get his hand raised at the end given that he was the hometown fighter and Khomitsky just the visitor.
If Murray is going to have any kind of chance when/if he does get a fight against Golovkin, he’s going to need to fight better opposition than Tetteh and Khomitsky, but I guess we’re probably not going to see that happen. I mean, if Murray is struggling to beat journeyman level opposition like Khomitsky, then that’s a pretty good sign that Murray will continue on the journeyman path until he gets his payday fight against Golovkin and likely gets destroyed in that fight.
Murray had the perfect chance to pick up the WBC title in his fight against Sergio Martinez last year in April, but instead of throwing punches the way that normal challengers do, Murray hid behind his clam shell defense and covered up like a sparring partner for 12 rounds against the injured Sergio. Earlier in the fight, Martinez had injured his had and knee, and he was basically fighting with one good leg and one hand. Martinez beat Murray one hand and one leg and it was just a really poor effort from Murray in a winnable fight.
It’s kind of odd that Murray is on the verge of being given another world title shot after getting beaten by Sergio. Normally it takes a while for a contender to work his way back into a world title shot, and they usually have to face a live body or two to get another crack at a title. But if Murray is able to get title fight after his bout against Tetteh on Saturday, then all he will have had to do is beat two journeyman level opponents to get that fight. I’d like to see Murray have to beat someone like Daniel Jacobs or Brian Vera before getting another world title fight. At least that way there would be some kind of hoop that he would have to jump through in order to get the fight.
Comments are closed.