By Terence Dooley
Joe Murray faces his stiffest test yet when meeting Ukrainian veteran Yuri Voronin at the Goresbrook Leisure Centre, later tonight on the undercard of Matthew Hatton’s vacant European welterweight title showdown against the experienced Italian Gianluca Branco. Murray, 23, is building up a nice head of steam in his career thus far. Joe Gallagher, who trains Murray, drafted in top-notch sparring for this fight in the shape of European bantamweight champion Rendall Munroe.
Gallagher firmly believes that his charge is ready to put on a show against the 36-year-old veteran. “We’ve just finished in the gym today and everyone is buzzing, which is weird considering the bad news we’ve had with John Murray’s EBU title negotiations falling through,” declared Gallagher.
“I’ve had to keep Joe on the leash as he’s excited from the way he performed in his spars with Rendall Munroe, and he also did four rounds with Anthony Crolla on Sunday. Scott Quigg had a good result against this guy but Scott was 15-0 at the time and this kid was on his feet and complaining when it ended in the sixth round. Joe wants to nail him to the canvas.
“This is an opportunity. This guy has had a lot of notice and last time [agent] Philippe Fondu brought a kid over for Joe it was an undefeated Georgian [George Mchedlishvili] so Philippe knows all about Joe. We’ll let him off the leash tomorrow and he’ll rock and roll”
Voronin is 3-3 in his last six fights but was once good enough to last the distance with Bernard Dunne and Nicky Cook, could this be a potential banana skin for Murray, 6-0 (3). “Yeah, we are a little bit worried,” admitted Gallagher.
“Remember, though, Joe’s first couple of fights saw him fight tough guys and he then had a tough Georgian. Let’s not forget that Joe was a world-class amateur and he was trained to protect a lead, hit and run, but now he has to pace himself and punch properly. You can win an amateur contest with eight clean blows but it is not like that in the pros and Joe is picking up on that very, very quickly.
“This guy shook Dunne late, lost on points to Cook and is out to prove a point. He’ll want to come back here and show he’s not cannon fodder and show his real stature. We’ve got a difficult task on our hands. If Joe doesn’t win on Friday night he’ll learn his level in the game but I know from watching him spar the likes of [Michael] Brodie and Rendall that Joe has what it takes.”
Munroe has sparred Murray on a number of occasions. I was privy to one of these sessions back in the summer when Murray travelled to the Shinfield’s idyllic Derby-based gym to lock horns with ‘2 Tone’. Rendall had raved about Murray after those sessions; he is now a firm fan of the Denton-based fighter.
“Rendall is excited, he knows Joe has the blueprint for success”, enthused Gallagher, “we are really excited because we know that if Joe can bring his gym form into the ring then his career’ll really take off. His brother, John, didn’t bring his gym form into the ring until fairly recently but we think Joe is going to show everyone on Friday night that he is the Olympian the people should be proud of, that he is on a par with DeGale and Gavin.
“Joe turned pro in last March and then fought on a massive Las Vegas bill [a win over Missael Nunez on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton], and now he’s fighting in his nation’s capital, you can’t ask for more. This will be a great experience for him and he’s happy to fight in London, it has been a good hunting ground for him in the past. A lot of eyeballs will be on Joe on Friday night, he can make his own headlines.”
Sky Sports 1 and HD1 televise from 10pm.
