Bakhram Sait-Khamzatovich Murtazaliev vs. Joshua Kelly & Josh Padley vs. Jaouad Belmehdi RBR.

Was it you who messaged me about swearing saying next time it will be a ban? Lol

 

Its not about the fighter, its about styles. CST80 clearly hates 'runners', and prefers Muratz style.

 

Running doesn't equate to boxing. Even while backing up, you have to throw punches and land shots.

Kelly runs but barely throws anything. He lands a pot shot here and there, but doesn't land enough to win the rounds when Murtazaliev is also throwing and landing. For someone to use words like "dominating" shows that you don't know anything about boxing.

 

Can’t wait for Boots to knock out Kelly

 

Glad for JK. Hopefully he can defend his title once, then get a big fight, and leave the sport with a good bag before he retires.

Followed him closely early in his pro career, partly because of all the noise around his fight with Avanesyan that was called off, and then they fought a few years later. Kelly lost for a better man in a European title fight, and it didn't come as a surprise to me. I saw Avanesyan's first fight against Kerman Lerrajaga in Bilbao when he got his career back on track, and I expected Avanesyan to win and possibly expose Kelly (which he did). I felt for Kelly though as he (and his team) seemed to have a problem with living up to the the hype and expectations around him (given how Hearn tried to build his career as a pro, often letting him fight on the undercard of big Matchroom events), and when he failed the sink or swim test, Hearn abandoned him. As such, I think Kelly and Booth have done very well to come back to where they are today. Also kudos for both Kelly and Booth for staying together as a team, and managing to turn his career around.

Styles make fights, and at home, the decision went in Kelly's favour. It is what it is. Away on the road, I guess Kelly would have lost, unless changing his tactics and throwing significantly more. Murtazaliev was too one dimensional though, didn't manage to close off the ring, did not land enough (to the body), and couldn't do what Avanesyan did. The script was there.

Avanesyan may not have won a title (other than the regular WBA title), but he waited patiently for a big payday after his wins against Lerrajaga and Kelly, and got it when he fought Crawford. My guess is that Avanesyan, even as a small welter, would have beaten both Kelly and Murtazaliev as we saw them perform today, as super welters. Much better ring IQ, and enough pop to hurt and possibly stop both in the later rounds.

 

This content is protected

 

I thought Kelly landed the cleaner more effective punches for most of the rounds. Murat was throwing more but missing most of them. He got outboxed. Kelly ran at times but most of the time he was actually boxing and moving.

 

Nobody slags Brits more than I do (often to bust the balls of my man @Serge), but fair play to Kelly.

I had it a drawish type fight, but if I had to pick a winner, I liked Kelly's cleaner work and overall ring generalship.

 

Murtazaliev won this. Kelly ran all night. It looked exactly like Canelo vs Skull.

 

Here are the actual compubox stats. Murtazaliev landed more:

CompuBox Stats: Kelly landed 75 of 202, 37% total punches while Murtazaliev landed 93 of 444, 21%. Both fighters tasted the canvas. Murtazaliev closed with a 43 to 17 connect advantage over the last 4 rounds.

Both guys were missing. Murtazaliev threw more and landed more in most of the rounds. Kelly hit gloves most of the time with only a few shots getting through.

Brits set this one up to steal the belt. Ref doesn't warn Kelly about the holding. Commentators ignores everything that Murtazaliev does and call running without throwing punches "brilliant" boxing. Judges that score it for the hometown fighter.

 

I had it 114 to 112 for Murtza really 114 to 111 if you give Murtz a 10 to 7 round it appeared to me Kelly got hit with a punch when he went down a second time but the ref ruled a slip.

I generally score a close round to the guy making the action, which was Murtzah, but I will go the other way if he is getting tagged on the way in more than landing, I even had Cruz beating Muratallah because of this, and its unusual for me to do that but I was almost reluctantly finding myself giving some close rounds to "Cruz because I felt the body attacks were not quite landing from Muratalla when you really looked.

but here you had Josh Kelly who I gave A LOT of rounds to him based on more effective punching when retreating, and negating the action by holding on the inside.........I still gave a lot of rounds to him, but there comes a point where if you land a flashy combo boom boom boom OK IVE GOT THIS ROUND TIME TO RUNNY RUN RUN AND HOLDY HOLD HOLD

ITS COMPLETE BULL**** and should not be rewarded.

I mean do really WANT to see that and reward that?? oooooooh he got murtzah there with a GOOD little combo, now just get on your bike and run for dear life!

no no no no we do not want that

Murzah won this fight

respect to Kelly he fought out of his skin vs what his skill set is and I cant hate on him for doing everything he could do win how he did but I can hate on the judges and the media and all the rest

It sucks because who is going to fight Murtza now? Perhaps he can move to 160 and get a fight there

 

I am also a bit surprised that @CST80 saw it as a robbery and serge is so defensive about it.

I didn't score the fight, but it felt like kelly had control of many rounds. Often murtazaliev was just following him and when I see a round with like 4-5 non-consequential not super exciting hits on both sides give or take and most of the time one fighter is following and missing a lot against someone showing off his defensive skills, I assume the defensive fighter gets the round based on ring generalship and how he controls the flow of the fight.

In this case particularly there were many middle rounds where I didn't get the feeling that murtazaliev pressured kelly, but that he followed him.

I was rooting for murtazaliev, as I am in most cases with good interesting fighters from noname countries, but without scoring I didn't get the feeling he was winning it. Maybe a draw?

So a bit surprised that others saw it they way I would have liked to see it.

But it was a good fight and kelly did pretty well. And if he fights ennis next that will be impressive.

The wide scorecard was obviously corrupt.