By Scott Gilfoid: Former four-time world title challenger Martin Murray will be facing former two-time world title challenger Gabriel Rosado on April 22 at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. This is the big fight that Murray’s promoter Eddie Hearn has been talking about for a week now.
Murray won his last fight against the previously unbeaten fringe contender Nuhu Lawal by a 12 round unanimous decision on November 12 last year. It was a good win for Murray, but it wasn’t a victory over a top name.
Rosado likes to slug it out with his opposition. I don’t know if that’s good news for Murray, who tends to be more of the time that covers up with his high guard for long stretches when facing busy fighters.
The only thing that Murray has going for him against Rosado is his size advantage. Murray will definitely be the bigger guy due to Rosado being selected from the middleweight division for him to fight. Murray will have to throw more punches than he normally does for him to beat Rosado.
The idea behind Murray fighting Rosado is that it could lead to him being pushed up the rankings at 168, even though he’s not fighting a contender. Ideally, when you want to get pushed up the rankings quickly, you fight actual contenders in the division you’re competing in.
Hearn would perhaps be better off matching Murray against a top super middleweight rather than a journeyman middleweight from the 2nd tier like Rosado. Putting Murray in with top guys like David Benavidez, Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell, Jesse Hart, Zac Dunn, Rogelio Medina or Callum Smith is what Hearn SHOULD be doing. Matching him with a journeyman middleweight like Rosado seems like a backwards way of getting Murray a title shot.
Hearn wasn’t willing to reveal the name of Murray’s opponent, but he said it was a big fight. Some boxing fans might see this fight as a disappointment, because Rosado (23-10, 13 KOs) is more of a journeyman level fighter at this point in his career rather than a contender or a stepping stone type of a fighter. In fact, Rosado isn’t ranked at all in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies at this time. He used to be, but after 4 defeats in his last 6 fights, Rosado is no longer ranked in the top tier at middleweight.
Rosado’s record in his last six fights is 2-4. As such, I don’t see what there is to get excited about for Hearn or Murray.
The 31-year-old Rosado is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Willie Monroe Jr. last September on the undercard of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Liam Smith card at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. There was talk of Rosado potentially facing Canelo if he beat Monroe. Rosado ended up losing by a fairly wide 12 round decision by the scores 118-110, 117-110 and 116-112. That was the last time Rosado has fought.
The loss ended a 2-fight winning streak for Rosado. He had beaten Antonio Gutierrez and Joshua Clottey in back to back fights. His career was suddenly looking bright for the first time since 2012. Rosado had lost three straight fights to David Lemieux, Jermell Charlo and Peter Quillin. He had also been beaten by J’Leon Love and Gennady Golovkin in 2013. Rosado’s loss to Love was changed to a no decision after Love tested positive for a banned substance.
If not for the decision being overturned, Rosado would have had five straight defeats. We’d be talking about Rosado coming into the Murray fight with 6 defeats out of his last 8 fights rather than just 5 out of his last 8 fights like he is now. Either way, Rosado’s career is not going well at this time.
This is not a guy for Murray to be fighting. Moreover, Rosado is fighting in the division BELOW Murray at 160. Just why Murray is fighting someone from a division below him is unclear. It seems to me that when you move up to super middleweight, you should be fighting guys from that division rather than combing the division below that for journeyman opposition to pad your record with.
The Murray vs. Rosado fight will be televised lived on Sky Sports in the UK. Murray is still hoping to get another world title shot and win a world title for the first time in his 10-year pro career. Murray is currently ranked #7 with the WBA at 168. It would seem that Hearn is targeting World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Tyron Zeuge for Murray to fight at some point in the future.
There’s also the possibility of Hearn setting Murray up to face the winner of the Fedor Chudinov vs. George Groves fight for the WBA Super World super middleweight title, although I don’t see the point in Murray fighting the winner of that match if Groves comes out on top. Murray was soundly beaten by Groves by a 12 round unanimous decision last year on June 25 at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Groves beat Murray by the scores 118-110, 118-110 and 118-110.
It was completely one-sided from start to finish with Groves pounding Murray with power shots while he hid behind his clam-shell high guard and did little offensively. Groves obviously trained in how to neutralize Murray’s clam-shell, as he threw his punches around his high guard rather than straight up the middle like many boxers do. The result was Groves hurting Murray on a number of occasions and turning him into little more than a punching bag. Murray never adapted and he ended up losing badly. I predicted that Murray would hide behind his guard all night, because he had done in the past many times when facing world class opposition. Who can forget when Murray challenged for a world title against WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez on April 27, 2013, and lost the fight to him by a narrow 12 round decision? Murray had a good chance of winning if he had stopped hiding behind his clam-shell guard and thrown some punches. This was Martinez’s first fight since suffering a bad knee injury in his contest with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in September 2012. It was clear that Martinez’s knee did not look good in that fight. Murray should have been able to capitalize on that if he had let his hands go instead of just covering up all night like a sparring partner.
It’s going to be interesting to see if Murray can get another world title shot in the near future. It would be 5 world title shots if Murray can get yet another crack at a world title. Some contenders never get world title fights. It’s hard to believe that Murray has already fought for a world title 4 times in his career.
What makes it hard to believe is that Murray has never really beaten anyone truly good for him to be given all these world title shots in my opinion. Murray’s best wins of his career have come against these fighters: Nuhu Lawal, Domenico Spada, Max Bursak, Siarhei Khamitski, Jorge Navarro and Nick Blackwell. Those are not great fighters. Those are the best guys that Murray has beaten. Murray’s win over Khamitski was controversial though. A lot of boxing fans had Khamitski winning that fight. I thought Murray lost as well.