Geale doesn’t like Martin Murray’s chances against Golovkin

By Boxing News - 01/12/2015 - Comments

murray53By Scott Gilfoid: Britain’s Martin Murray (29-1-1, 12 KOs) has a high #1 ranking with the World Boxing Council, but former world champion Daniel Geale doesn’t believe it’s going to ultimately help him next month when Murray gets inside the ring with the talented and hard hitting WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs) in their fight on February 21st at the Salle des Étoiles, Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Geale, a recent knockout victim of Golovkin’s, doesn’t rule out a victory for the 32-year-old Murray in this clash, but he doesn’t have high hopes for the big middleweight.

It’s really hard to give Murray much of any chance because he doesn’t have the punching power to stand in the pocket and make a fight of it like he did against Sergio Martinez. If Murray stands his ground like he did against the one-legged Martinez, Golovkin will butcher him quickly with his head and body shots.

It probably doesn’t even matter if Murray hides behind his clam-shell guard in the early going, he’s still going to be absorbing body shots and punches that send shockwaves through his gloves into his head.

“I cannot see Murray winning that fight against GGG but stranger things have happened in boxing,” Geale said to Fightnews.com. “Having been in the ring with Golovkin and seen several of Murray’s fights I don’t think he has the skill level to match it with Golovkin. To fight Golovkin you have to get in there and rough him about. You cannot stand back off him. It will be interesting to see how Murray does approach this fight.”

I don’t think it would much if Murray did try and rough Golovkin up. He could shove him around, elbow him or head-butt him all night, and I still see Golovkin nailing Murray with something he can’t handle.

The chances are that Murray is going to play sparring partner for this fight and just cover up the same way he did for most of his fight against Sergio Martinez. I know a lot of Murray’s fans don’t recall how much of the time that he wasted just hiding behind his guard against the one-legged Martinez, but let me tell you it was for most of the fight.

It was a wasted opportunity for Murray because he could have won the fight if he came out of hiding long enough to throw 30-40 punches per round. I see Murray reverting to form by fighting the same way against Golovkin as he did Martinez, except in this case Golovkin is going to smash Murray to the body with some rib-crunching shots that will likely leave him in a heap on the canvas.

Murray can take a mean head shot, but when Golovkin starts nailing him to the body, I see Murray dropping like a sack of potatoes on the canvas and laying there in agony while he’s being counted out by the referee.

The real way to deal with Golovkin is to use movement and a long jab to keep him from getting close enough to land his huge shots. The problem that Murray has is he lacks the ability to move due to his huge size. He’s more of a plodder than a mover, so he can’t use movement against Golovkin.

I think Murray is a super middleweight who boils down to middleweight to fight smaller guys than himself. Maybe he’d be faster at super middleweight, but then again he wouldn’t have any size advantage over anyone in that division like he does at middleweight.



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