By Sean McDaniel: Kevin Mitchell (31-1, 23 KO’s) will be facing unbeaten John Murray (31-0, 18 KO’s) on July 9th at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, London, England. Mitchell will be taking this fight without the benefit of a tune-up, because he hasn’t fought since being taken out in the 3rd round last year by Michael Katsidis in May.

You have to give Mitchell a lot of credit to take a tough opponent like the undefeated Murray after such a long layoff. The money obviously is good enough for Mitchell to take the fight, but also he sees how slow and hittable Murray is and knows that he can take advantage of the plodding style by Murray. Had this fight taken place before Mitchell’s loss to Katsidis few boxing fans would be giving Murray any chance in this fight. But that loss combined with the time off from boxing has people wondering about Mitchell’s chin as well as the rust factor in the fight.

I don’t see either being a problem for Mitchell, because he’s going to be looking as good as new come July 9th and will resume showing how special he is. Mitchell has the better hand speed and foot work by far. Murray, ranked #4 WBO, #10 IBF, #2 WBC, isn’t completely slow but he’s slow enough so that a fighter like Mitchell will look like he’s moving in warp speed compared to the sluggish movements of Murray. Mitchell had looked great against Breidis Prescott and Ignacio Mendoza before the Katsidis fight.

However, Mitchell failed to train hard enough for that fight and didn’t seem to take Katsidis as serious as he needed to. Mitchell won’t be making that same mistake again, though, because he’s going to be ready for the Murray fight and will be able to deal with his pressure style of fighting. Murray is counting on wearing Mitchell down over the course of the fight to try and get a knockout or a decision. For that to happen Mitchell will seriously have to run out of gas because that’s really only chance Murray has in this fight. Murray looked terrible in his last fight against Spaniard Karim El Ouazghari and got hit an awful lot in that fight.