By Scott Gilfoid: Tom Loeffler, the promoter for WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs), sees Gennady’s next opponent Martin Murray (29-1-1, 12 KOs) as a dangerous opponent for him. Golovkin and Murray will be fighting in less than three weeks on February 21st at the Salle des Etoiles, Monte Carlo.
Murray is a huge underdog in this fight, and he’s considered mostly as just another B-level guy that Golovkin is going to mow down in this fight. The fact that Loeffler is building Murray up has me thinking the opposite about him. If Loeffler is building Murray up, it tells me that he sees him as another pushover for Golovkin to make easy work of.
“He’s [Murray] a good middleweight. He’s a solid middleweight,” Loeffler said via UCN. “He’s one of the top middleweights in the WBC. He’s much bigger than Gennady. He’s experienced, and he’s fought Felix Sturm for his title. He’s fought Sergio Martinez for the title, so he’s a very dangerous opponent.”
The reality is that Murray doesn’t have much in the way of punching power, so he’s kind of the opposite of a “dangerous opponent. If you look at Murray’s record, you’ll notice that he only has 12 knockouts in 30 fights.
Those knockouts game against pretty much little more than fodder opposition without a lot of talent. But what’s really interesting is that Murray hasn’t knocked out a lot of the guys he’s faced, and we’re talking about a lot of weak opponents. I mean, you can make an argument that Golovkin would have knocked out every guy that Murray has ever faced and would be sporting a record of 30-0, with 30 knockouts.
Murray has experience against Martinez and Felix Sturm, but those are pretty much the only notable opponents on Murray’s resume. The thing is Murray lost to Martinez by not throwing enough punches, and he deserved to lose against Sturm in a fight that was scored a draw.
Having experience against guys is one thing, but Murray’s experience has been the negative type. You can’t really count that as experience when a fighter winds up on the losing end.
Golovkin is going to go after Murray from the opening bell, and he’ll be looking to take him out with body shots. Normally, Golovkin is a headhunter, but Murray’s clam-shell high guard is going to cause Golovkin to go after his body to take him out. Murray can handle head shots, but I’m guessing he’ll fold quickly once he starts getting hit to the body for the first time in his career.
Golovkin isn’t going to waste much time on Murray on February 21st. Golovkin needs a solid win in order to ensure he gets his title shot against possibly WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto. To be sure, Golovkin will be fighting for the WBC 160 pound title. The only question is will it be against Cotto or some other fighter.
Cotto has an optional title defense coming up in his next fight, which should take place by May. Cotto, 34, hasn’t made one defense of his WBC title since he took it off of Sergio Martinez last year in June. If Cotto fights in May, he’ll have been out of the ring for exactly 11 months. That’s a long time for a fighter Cotto’s age.
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