Martin Murray: Can He Finally Win a World Title Should his 5th Opportunity Come His Way?

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Last week, a man who should have been world champion fought for his career and his very boxing life, managing to resurrect his middleweight championship hopes with a controversial win over American Gabriel Rosado, 23-11, 13 KO’s.

Make no mistake had Martin Murray, 35-1-4, 14 KO’s, not managed to win he would have been going back to his home town of St Helens and hanging up his gloves.

Of course, in a sport filled with opinions and pony tails, there are more than a few who think he should be hanging them up anyway because they thought he lost the fight. Principal amongst those in that corner is Rosado himself, and to be fair to him and the boxing public, that is not that far-fetched as this was a bruising encounter with much about which there ought to be arguments.

On paper with 10 losses prior to the fight with Murray, Rosado’s professional record looked a little weak – but only on paper. Rosado has been a professional fighter for 11 years and in that time, has had 2 cracks at a world title himself – against Gennady Golovkin and Peter Quillan; both are in his 10 previous losses.

Murray’s career has seen some success, notably as a British and Commonwealth champion, 2008 Prizefighter champion, as well as the WBA interim title holder but his destiny, so far, has not included a full world title. He has fought for one no fewer than 4 times.
Those world champion fights have been classic and tough but he has always fallen short mainly due to the judges; he should be able to feel sympathy for Rosado then.

His journey to world title contention was tough and included being the first to defeat Nick Blackwell for the British belt as well as beating a fair number of non-British fighters including Sergey Khomitsky and the tough Brazilian Carlos Nascimento.

This brought him in 2011, at the SAP-Arena in Mannheim, Germany, an opportunity to go in against Felix Sturm for the WBA belt. After 12 pulsating rounds which Murray clearly won, it was declared a draw. Murray was quite simply robbed in an away fight.

He dragged himself up off that disappointment and the following year, in 2012, he went on and won the interim WBA championship against Jorge Navarro by stopping him.

It led to another world title attempt – and again he had to travel.

In 2013, he travelled all the way to Argentina to face Sergio Gabriel Martinez. Disappointment was, again round the corner as even knocking the champion down twice was not enough for the judges; the referee only counted one of the knockdowns. Murray was once again left with a sick feeling in his stomach that he had lost to those outside the ring rather than the man he faced inside it.

Murray’s reputation was gaining as both Sturm and Martinez are “names”. Murray had shown no fear on getting to any arena and facing the best; he just fell short of convincing the judges he had beaten the best.

That 2012 win for the interim WBA belt guaranteed him though, a shot at the full WBA belt and the champion who was another big name – so big he has 3 capitals – “GGG”. For the third time, Murray tried to win his world title away from home, this time in Monaco.

A spirited performance and a fight he definitely lost this time as he was stopped in the 11th round; remarkably this was the first time that Murray had been stopped in his professional career.

Murray then took the view that he might, as he was getting older, go up in weight from middleweight to super middle and see if there were opportunities for him there. GGG held the middleweight division in the palm of his hand and if Murray could not beat him there were no belts for him to gather there.

And so, Murray’s 4th attempt to win a world title came in 2015 in another controversial fight where he lost by split decision against Arthur Abrahams… in Germany! Whilst Murray did not look out of place it was clear that he is more suited to the lower weight category. A further domestic battle against another 4-time world titlist George Groves saw him lose and realise that getting down to middleweight might be his real opportunity and hence the fight with Rosado.

Of the 4 attempts to win a world title, it could be argued that for 3 of them there are compelling cases that he won. Had those decisions gone in his favour he would not have been in the ring with Rosado at the weekend. He would also have been unlikely to have flirted with super middleweight and lost to George Groves in another brilliant fight.

Murray believes that there is a destiny out there where he is crowned a world champion and to be fair I did think he won those 3 fights – especially against Sturm.

As for Saturday’s fight, I have read a great deal about it and the apparently ungracious way that Rosado behaved afterwards – mind you if I thought I had won I might have been equally ungracious. The weekend fight was also the first time that Murray had headlined a show in his own home town so it marks a massive chapter in his career.

The next one should be at middleweight and in against one of the champions – perhaps a domestic with Billy Joe Saunders for the WBO belt – and he can finally get the belt that the credit he has already accrued deserves.

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