By Scott Gilfoid: Former three time world title challenger Martin Murray (29-2-1, 12 KOs) believes that his move up in weight to super middleweight is going to help increase his punching power. Goodness knows, Murray showed very little power during his career in fighting in the 160 pound division.
Murray is going to need a considerable bump up in the power department for him to be a factor at 168. Murray looked very weak in his 11th round knockout loss to WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin last February.
While you’ve got to give Murray some credit for surviving 11 rounds against the murderous punching Golovkin, you can’t really give him full credit because he was running and holding like mad.
Murray still believes he’s the second best middleweight in the division, which obviously hard to take seriously when you compare him to other top middleweights like Miguel Cotto, Peter Quillin, Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders, Tureano Johnson, Andy Lee, Chris Eubanks Jr. and Jorge Sebastian Heiland. Those guys all can punch better than Murray. They may not be as heavy as him, but they can definitely punch better than he can.
“Being at middleweight is affecting my power, my strength and speed,” Murray said via Skysports.com. Those last couple of pounds take a bit away. “When I go under 11 stone 12 I just feel like the power goes away from me a little bit. It’s always been that way, losing power trying to make middleweight.”
Murray may actually be right about him losing some punching power in draining down to 160, but it can’t be that much power he’s losing. I mean, if Murray had any kind of punching power at all, he would show it even in moving down to 160. When fighters lose weight to fight at a division below, or in the hulking Murray’s case two division’s below his natural weight, they can normally still punch with a lot of power. What they lose is their stamina in moving down in weight.
I see Murray as more of a light heavyweight than a super middleweight, and I think he’s not going to be happy with his results in moving to 168. It’s only eight pounds, and as big as Murray is, I think he needs to be fighting at light heavyweight where he can take his 180+ pound frame and try to compete against the likes of Sergy Kovalev, Artur Beterbiev, Juergen Braehmer and Adonis Stevenson.
Murray’s new promoter Eddie Hearn has a good working relationship with Braehmer’s promoter, so there’s probably a good chance that Murray would be able to get a title shot against Braehmer. That would be the more winnable fight for Murray than putting him in with the likes of Stevenson, Kovalev or Beterbiev and watching him get totally annihilated in short order.
“It’s not a case of adding eight pounds on and getting bigger, it’s a case of not taking eight pounds off,” Murray said. “This isn’t about me moving up. It’s about me fulfilling my potential and I’m going to be a better super-middleweight than I was a middleweight.”
I don’t see there being any potential for Murray at super middleweight, I really don’t. Murray doesn’t match up with champions like James DeGale, Badou Jack, Arthur Abraham and Andre Ward. I also don’t think Murray matches up with Anthony Dirrell, George Groves, Andre Dirrell, Mikkel Kessler, Robert Stieglitz, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Edwin Rodriguez, Gilberto Ramirez, Sakio Bika and Derek Edwards. I would frankly be very surprised if Murray could beat any of those guys.
Ultimately, I see Murray’s experiment in moving up to super middleweight ending in failure. I see him losing a couple of times, and then getting a clue that he needs to move back down to middleweight in the same way that Nathan Cleverly’s move up to cruiserweight was a failure, and how Tony Bellew’s move up to cruiserweight will soon be a failure as well.
Comments are closed.