John Murray Talks Eye Injury, World Title Shot
By Terence Dooley
John Murray moved to 30-0 (18) at the Robin Park Centre, Wigan last night by scoring a muscular stoppage win over Andriy Kudryavtsev. However, the 25-year-old almost had to pull the plug on his maiden EBU lightweight title defence after aggravating an old eye-injury during his final sparring session. Indeed, Murray's left eye looked swollen on Sky Sport's pre-fight preview, the Mancunian later revealed that he scratched his eyeball when sparring Paul Truscott over a year ago and the injury had flared up ahead of the make-or-break clash.
“Definitely,” said Murray when asked if the eye problem had almost derailed his preparations. “It was a scratched eye. They anaesthetised it on Monday night so they could go over it with cotton swabs. It is an ongoing injury, I did it about a year-and-half ago sparring Paul Truscott. It didn't feel right and has been giving me aggro for the past year-and-half. It felt like it had gone in the last sparring session so I was devastated because it had been a ten week camp – I did genuinely think that I wouldn't be able to fight.”
He continued: “They put a big patch on my eye for two days and I just sat in a dark room doing nothing so that it could be alright for Saturday. I felt it in the fight, about round four or five, but I was well into the fight by then so there is no point complaining about things like that once you're in there. I just got on with it and thought I did a really good job.”
John stopped the Ukrainian challenger at 2:39 of the ninth, a big right hand forcing referee Manuel Oliver Palomo to halt the contest. It had been a give-and-take affair, with Murray's eye holding up remarkably well given the circumstances.
Murray, who now hopes to fight the likes of Victor Ortiz, Humberto Soto or the winner of Marquez-Katsidis, believes that his willingness to fight through the pain barrier will hold him in good stead. “I was one night away from walking from the fight,” reiterated Murray.
“We took the eye patch off on Tuesday morning and my eye looked bad. I asked [trainer] Joe [Gallagher] if I'd be able to fight and he said, 'There is no chance you can fight with that eye', so I went to bed Tuesday night thinking that I might not be boxing.
“We had decided that if I got up on Wednesday and the eye wasn't showing improvements then the fight was off. I went to bed, got up the next day and miraculously the eye felt better so we went on with the fight. I decided it was worth the gamble, the gamble has paid off and it was a very good performance,” declared the lightweight contender.
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