By Terence Dooley
Manchester's John Murray has decided against travelling to America for a proposed fight with Henry Lundy and will instead wait for his long-awaited EBU lightweight title shot.
Murray, 25, decided that the Showtime opportunity had more cons than pros and
will wait to see if promoter Mick Hennessy can secure him a home match against the Ukraine's Andrei Kudriavtsev for the EBU belt vacated by Anthony Mezaache, who was due to be Murray's original opponent for the March the 19th American showcase. Purse bids are due in by the 21st of this month for the Murray-Kudriavtsev contest.
Murray was keen to fight in America; however, although the fighter has been training since the turn of the year he decided to take lessons from his hastily-arranged 2008 fight against Youssef Al Hamidi , in which Murray performed tepidly after original opponent John Fewkes withdrew from the contest. John is cognisant of the fact that a loss in the US would have scuppered his EBU chances due to the organisation's rule prohibiting losing fighters challenging for their titles.
Murray will remain in training and is set to spar Joan Guzman later this week, although some sites have erroneously jumped the gun and reported that the two have already sparred.
Please send news and views to neckodeemus@hotmail.co.uk
