It's not a world title shot and whether he deserves one anyway is irrelevant. Murray is not world class imo, he hasn't even fought the other UK middleweights to guage if he's the best there. His performance against an old ass and injury prone Martinez and an undeserved draw v Sturm flatter him immensely.
Tbf martinez was almost universally acclaimed to be the man at 160, whether he was "old ass and injury prone". Martinez had 'aged' in that fight but he still took a world class fighter all the way.
Don't be mean. Warrington is a town in search of an 'identity' - I'm from Stockport an' it's fairly s#it, but who gives a f#kk about Warrington?
I really wanna see the Khomitsy - Murray II footage (if it exists), Murray's made a decent name for himself against Sturm and Maravilla but Khomitsky apparently gave him trouble both times round.:huh GGG TKO5d Khomitsky in his 8th pro fight.
This is exactly what I'm talking about, you can't discount Sergio's injuries or age when assessing Murray's performance. He was a huge underdog for a reason. It's not like he suddenly morphed into a world class fighter, it's more a case of a young, tough, natural middleweight looked very good versus the smaller, older and injured fighter. Look how Murray fared v a natural, strong, fit middleweight, Sturm. He done better than expected but still lost in the eyes of most people and was almost taken out in the last round. He only got a draw due to a knee jerk reaction to the scoring in the Macklin fight. If he was consistently beating world class fighters I would change my opinion but his last fight is a more accurate guage of his level and abilities.
Just found this on youtube. Get it before they take it down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=m1l7tieKkPk
The only "excuse" for this is if a) they got Murray's visa issues sorted out b) there is a plan for hyping up Murray before the GGG fight Otherwise this stinks really bad. The WBA allowed Sturm to duck GGG for years with this trick. If Murray's visa issues prevents him from fighting in the US, they basically handcuffed the belt to Europe. Great. Just what boxing needs. Makes me interested in how much Murray had to pay for this. Didn't Sturm give 200k for the "super title" ? Guess that the regular belt cost 50-100k then... Anne Wolffe needs to work over these guys....
A set up.Murry probably had to agree to fight GGG on HBO's April date where he will be destroyed by GGG. Desreving of this "title" shot-hardly.:tired
I would say somewhere between the two levels personally, he is a very good,tough fighter who gave both martinez and sturm problems... He looked awful last fight but certainly wasn't 100% health wise. For me, GGG and martinez beat him, toss up fight between him and sturm and could see him beating quillen. Agree he needs a victory over a world class fighter to 'go up a level' hopefully this will lead to bigger things.
Sweet! I've been waiting to see this. Martin did not look good there, I scored it for Khomitsky (5-3). He struggle with Sergey the first time around as well, but the virus could very well have been a legit excuse for his performance here. The Belarusian is a solid journeyman/gatekeeper, but he shouldn't be that competitive with a top 15 MW (which I have doubts that Martin really is).
I'm starting to disagree. Now that Martin will be crowned the WBA regular champ (assuming Fletcher loses...), Martin will have at least a year to defend that title against more cupcakes before he's maybe required to fight Golovkin. Murray-Golovkin will not be happening in 2014.