By Scott Gilfoid: In yet another tune-up fight for former three time world title challenger Martin Murray (31-2-1, 2, 14 KOs) will be facing 36-year-old middleweight journeyman Jose Miguel Torres (31-6, 27 KOs) on September 5th on the undercard of the featherweight contest between Josh Warrington and Joel Brunker at the Direct Arena in Leeds. It’s a nice little mismatch between Murray and Torres and it won’t help Murray one bit to get ready for the talented fighters in the super middleweight division.
#10 WBC, #15 WBO Murray will be dragging the short 5’8”Torres up from the 160lb division to fight at 168. Just why Murray needs to fight a middleweight journeyman at super middleweight is anyone’s guess. You would think that Murray would stick it out in fighting super middleweights after moving up to the division in June of this year after getting carried to the 11th and knocked out by IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin last February.
It could be that Murray struggled and did not look good in his last fight at 168 against Mirzet Bajrektarevic last July in Manchester, UK. That was supposed to have been an easy bout for Murray, but it turned out to be a tougher than expected fight with him getting hit a lot. To be sure, with the way Murray fought against Bajrektarevic, it’s hard to see him beating anyone good at 168.
The match-making that’s being done since Murray moved up to super middleweight has been on the poor side by his promoter Eddie Hearn, and it looks like Hearn is going to play it safe with the 32-year-old Murray until he gets him a world title shot at some point. As far as a world title shot, Hearn will either put him in with IBF 168lb champion James DeGale, who he promotes, or hope that George Groves defeats WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack on September 12th and try and make a match between Groves and Murray.
“This is the perfect fight for Martin and his first real test since the Golovkin fight,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “Torres always comes to fight, is exciting to watch and can really punch. He has been in at elite level and neither will take a step backwards in Leeds.”
Hearn says that Torres has been in with elite level opposition during his career, but as far as I can tell he’s only faced one elite level opponent during his 12 year pro career and that was against David Lemieux two years ago, and he was treated like a punching bag. It wasn’t even interesting to watch. Torres looked like a little junior middleweight against Lemieux, and it was really boring to watch all the one-way traffic from Lemieux.
Torres is an awful choice for Murray because he’s a small middleweight, not a super middleweight, and he’s not going to be able to get Murray ready for what he’s going to be facing when he gets inside the ring with taller more talented fighters in the division like the Dirrell brothers. But then again I think Hearn is going to keep Murray far, far away from the talented super middleweights and just look to get him a world title shot in a voluntary defense by one of the champions.
It’s going to depend a lot on whether DeGale can hold onto his title for long and if Groves beats Jack. If neither of those things happen, then Murray will be out of luck and will need to slowly work his way to a No.1 mandatory spot for one of the belts before he’s given a title shot. With the soft match-making that Hearn is doing for him, I think it might take Murray another 3 years before he gets another world title shot. He’ll be 35 by then, and likely over-the-hill.
I’m still trying to figure out why Hearn doesn’t want to put Murray in with an actual contender in the super middleweight division so that he can pick up ranking quickly rather than at a snail’s pace. All I can think is that Hearn might not be comfortable putting Murray in with a contender at 168. After all, Murray has failed each time he’s stepped it up and fought for world titles against Sergio Murray, Felix Sturm and Golovkin. Murray can beat the 2nd tier fodder that’s put in with him, but he struggles and fails when he’s put in against the best.
Torres was stopped in the 7th round of a one-sided contest against David Lemieux in November of 2013. Torres has also been beaten by Yudel Jhonson, Joe Greene, Charlie Navarro, Edwin Vasquez and Wilmer Gomez.
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