(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda)) By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC Martin Murray (29-2-1, 12 KOs) tried his best last night in his title shot against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs), but his best wasn’t good enough, as Golovkin bludgeoned Murray with power shots until the referee halted the fight in the 11th round at the Salle des Étoiles in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
To his credit, a bloody and battered Murray finished the fight on his feet rather than on the canvas like most of Golovkin’s foes have ended up. However, Murray failed to prove boxing fans wrong in doubting him, as he’d said he would do before the fight.
Murray basically only won one round last Saturday night against Golovkin and that was the 2nd. Other than that round, it was totally one-sided with Golovkin administering a brutal beating. The 5th, 8th and 10th rounds were especially brutal, as Golovkin severely punished Murray in each of those rounds.
Murray’s face was relatively unmarked before the 5th round. But in that round, Golovkin bloodied Murray’s nose with an uppercut that sliced through Murray’s clam-shell defense by going under it. Murray also was badly bruised around the side of his left eye in the round.
“That was the best I could do and it was not good enough. I’m absolutely gutted. He’s a great champion, a great fighter and there wasn’t much more I could do,” Murray said via the Dailystar.co.uk. “I’m sorry to let everyone down but there’s not much more I can do.”
There honestly wasn’t any more that Murray could do. He was holding like mad in the early going, but Golovkin put a stop to the holding in the 3rd when he would step backwards each time Murray would try and grab him. At the same time, Golovkin would throw punches while moving backwards, and the shots would catch Murray to the head while he was in the process of trying to grab.
At the end of the 3rd round, Golovkin hurt Murray with two hard right hands to the head. Murray tried to desperately grab Golovkin to tie him up, but he moved backwards, causing Murray to awkwardly stumble forward after failing to grab the Kazakhstan fighte.
Referee Luis Pabon looked like he was ready to halt the fight as early as the 8th round due to Murray taking a ton of punishment in that round. It was a miracle that Murray was able to make it out of that round because he took a lot of head-snapping shots to the head.
To be sure, Murray’s corner did him no favors by leaving him out there for the entire 8th and beyond, because it was academic at that point that Murray didn’t have a prayer of winning the fight. Pabon eventually did stop the fight in the 11th round in halting it at 0:50 of the round before Murray could get seriously hurt.
With the kind of beating that Murray took in this fight, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s never the same again. Murray took a lot of hard head shots in the fight and it was the kind of beating that sometimes shortens their career.
Golovkin knocked Murray down three times in the fight in dropping him twice in the 4th, and once in the 10th. The two fourth round knockdowns came via right hands to the body. The knockdown in the 10th was from a big right hand from Golovkin.
By that point in the fight, Murray looked punch drunk and nowhere near the same fighter he was earlier in the fight. Murray had eaten a lot of punches from Golovkin, and it was clear that it ear muff defense was no match for Golovkin’s arsenal.
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