Smith: If Anyone Can Stand Up To Golovkin - It's Murray

By Edward Chaykovsky

Adam Smith, head of boxing at Sky Sports, gave his thoughts on the upcoming middleweight fight between IBO/WBA/WBC-interim champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (31-0, 28KOs) and Martin Murray (29-1-1, 12KOs). The HBO televised fight is taking place on February 21st at Salle des Étoiles in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Smith believes Murray is big enough, and strong enough, to give Golovkin a very good test in the ring and likely a much tougher fight than many people expect. Murray gave former WBC champion Sergio Martinez a very bruising fight in 2013. Martinez barely escaped with a win suffered multiple injuries in the contest. Murray also fought to a controversial draw with former champion Felix Sturm. 

"Golovkin-Murray is a good match. Golovkin is obviously one of the great pound-for-pound fighters in the world at the moment. He looks like he doesn't have a chink in the armor. If anyone can stand up to him it's Martin Murray. He's tough, he's strong. He's been in with Martinez for twelve rounds, he's been in with Sturm for twelve rounds. He's a very, very tough man," Smith told BoxingScene.com/Be Real Boxing.

"I think he'll hang around. I think he'll be tougher than people think, but I still fancy Golovkin - even though Martin is a great guy, he's a friend of mine - but you have to go with what's proven. But it would not surprise me if Murray would somehow last into those [final] rounds and who knows then, but it's gonna be hard."