(Photo credit: K2 Promotions) By Scott Gilfoid: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin arrived in Monte Carlo on Monday to get ready for his fight this Saturday night on February 21st against No.1 WBC contender Martin Murray for their fight at the Salle des Etoiles. Unlike some fighters, Golovkin felt that he didn’t need the extra time to get acclimated to being in a new environment.
While some fighters like to arrive two weeks ahead of time for their fights in a different country, Golovkin was fine in arriving just five days ahead of time.
That kind of tells you how confident the hard hitting Golovkin is that he’ll be able to blast the 32-year-old Murray out straight away on Saturday night and not waste anytime letting Murray hang around.
That’s the thing you’ve got to like about Golokvin. He doesn’t let his opponents hang around and get their hopes up that have a chance of winning. Golovkin goes out immediately on a seek and destroy mission looking to put his opponents out of their misery as quick as possible in order to limit their suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gELLBDifMDg
The Golovkin-Murray fight will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing starting at 5:45 p.m. ET/PT next Saturday in the U.S. In addition to defending his World Boxing Association title, Golovkin will have his IBO strap and WBC interim title up for grabs in the fight.
While Murray is a huge underdog in the fight, he still has a chance of picking up the victory if he can take a boatload of punishment for eight or nine rounds, and then come on in the last quarter of the fight. I mean, it’s not likely to happen due to the sheer amount of big punches that Murray will have to eat along the way to get to the last part of the fight, but he still has a chance in theory.
Murray definitely has the size to make a fight of it, as he looks like a duplicate of Mikkel Kessler in terms of his size. I’m not quite sure why Murray isn’t fighting in the super middleweight division because he’s as big as any of the super middleweights in the division. But I guess he likes the advantage that his size gives him in melting down to fight 160 pound fighters rather than having to deal with guys as big as him at 168 like Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell, Carl Froch and Anthony Dirrell.
I wouldn’t like Murray’s chances of competing with those guys, even if all he did was cover up to block their shots all night.
Golovkin is going to have to find a hole in Murray’s armor in the early going, because Murray is expected to cover up in his shell to keep from taking head shots.
Golovkin can either decide on continuing to head hunt all night long like he did in his fights against Daniel Geale and Curtis Stevens, or he can go for the target that will be wide open in shooting his punches downstairs to Murray’s unprotected midsection.
If Golovkin decides to focus on Murray’s body, then he’s going to need to take an occasional head shot from the British fighter, because he’s not going to like getting hit to the body and he’ll likely start fighting tooth and nail to protect himself from getting knocked out.
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