By Scott Gilfoid: For #1 WBC Martin Murray (29-1-1, 12 KOs) to have a chance at beating WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs) next Saturday night on February 21st, Murray will need to be a great fighter, and not merely a good fighter.
We really don’t even know if Murray is a good fighter because he’s never really beaten anyone of note. All we’ve seen is Murray picking up wins against mediocre guys with less than spectacular credentials, such as Domenico Spada and Max Bursak. Those are middle of the road middleweights, and not the kind of guys that would give anyone problems.
The names that Murray is missing on his resume are fighters like Curtis Stevens, Daniel Jacobs, Peter Quillin, David Lemieux and Tureano Johnson. If Murray had beaten those fighters, then we’d know if he belongs in the same ring with Golovkin. But instead of those fighters, we only get to see how Murray did against an old an injured Sergio Martinez and Felix Sturm. In both of those fights, Murray failed to do enough to pick up a victory.
“Murray is a strong, solid guy. If you look back at his performances, they tend to be in between good and very good, but not typically great,” Campbell said via ESPN.com. “At this point if we’re to believe what we’ve seen from Golovkin, they need to be great in order to get over the top to give him some problems here.”
I’m in agreement with Campbell that Murray will need to be great for him to be able to pick up a victory over a talent like Golovkin, because it’s not going to be enough for Murray to be merely good when he gets in the ring on February 21st. Further, it’s not going to be enough for Murray to simply hide behind his clam-shell guard for 12 rounds, looking to block Golovkin’s shots and throwing an occasional punch in hopes of stealing the rounds.
That was what Murray did against Sergio Martinez. Murray hid behind his clam-shell guard for the vast majority of every round, and he would then come out from hiding and throw a shot that would snap back Martinez’s head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR-Yskfv1vY
The reason why Murray was able to land his shots was because Martinez had no respect for Murray’s offense because he wasn’t throwing enough punches. I mean, when you’ve got a guy hiding behind his clam-shell guard for two and a half minutes of every round, you’re going to forget about your own defense.
Martinez had what for all intents and purposes was a sparring partner in front of him in the form of Murray, who was just covering up and trying to survive the rounds instead of winning them.
“If you look at Murray’s most notable fight to date, it was in the 2013 title fight against the middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. I was in the minority; I gave Murray the fight. But the reason why he didn’t get the nod from the judges was, although it was a solid performance, he wasn’t able to get to the next level, to go over the top,” Campbell said. “He [Murray] had Martinez hurt. He had him injured. He was an aging middleweight at that point. Murray was not able to get to the next level that you have to do. I don’t think he’s going to be able to do that against Golovkin.”
It was troubling that Murray wasn’t able to take his game to the next level against an injured and old Sergio Martinez. If he couldn’t even open up against a one-legged and one-legged old Sergio Martinez, then what do you expect Murray to do against an in his prime Golovkin, who can punch like a mule kicks with either hand?
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