Bakhram Murtazaliev hopes to fight Erickson Lubin as early as September.
The IBF junior-middleweight champion and his team have been ordered by the sanctioning body to agree terms with his mandatory challenger by August 4 or to risk entering purse bids, potentially and finally bringing to an end what is approaching a “frustrating” year of inactivity.
Murtazaliev, 32, clinically stopped Tim Tszyu in three rounds in October 2024 to establish himself among the world’s finest at 154lbs and yet having since watched Tszyu fight twice more he is yet to make another defence of his title.
His promoter Main Events had been negotiating a voluntary title defence against England’s Josh Kelly – Murtazaliev’s promoter Egis Klimas told BoxingScene that those negotiations had stalled while they sought a broadcaster – but the IBF has since intervened, leaving Lubin, 29, on course to instead be his latest challenger before the conclusion of 2025.
Murtazaliev stressed that he remained interested in fighting Kelly, but he told BoxingScene, via his trainer and translator Roma Kalantaryan: “They asked us if we’re ready to fight and we said, ‘Yes’. The sooner we fight, then the sooner we fight the next fight, I guess. September; October; any time it’s a good fight is a good time. Let’s just make it happen.
“We’re ready to fight any time they give us a date. As long as I’m n ot doing Ramadan.
“It doesn’t matter who, we’re very happy to fight – we never care about who we fight. We’re very happy to fight – we only want to fight the top guys and I guess [Lubin is] the top guy right now. Tim’s fought a second time and we still haven’t fought once – no one wants to fight us. I’ve got big respect for Tim’s promoters [No Limit], that they can pull those fights off.
“Lubin was calling us out. He’s number-one mandatory; that’s why we’re happy to get this opportunity. That’s it. We think he really wants not to fight us, but he really wants to go for the title. It doesn’t matter who’s got the title. That’s what our opinion is. If he doesn’t fight now for the title, then when?
“He’s a very, very good fighter. He’s very skilful. He’s done very good fights with many, many good fighters, but we don’t know how good he is with me until we go into a ring, because so was everybody else – they fought the best, including Tim and all those others, and then as soon as we’re in the ring they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. It changed, so – he might be really, really good, and he is really, really good, but we’ll see how he’s going to be with us.”
Klimas had told BoxingScene ahead of the announcement from the IBF that “as soon as they’ve finalised a broadcaster, then that [Kelly] fight can happen [and a location can be determined]”, but a date with Lubin has since become considerably likelier.
Murtazaliev, of Russia, ultimately continues to consider the 31-year-old Kelly a potential future opponent, and explained: “If we do the fight in America, then Lubin. If we do the fight in England, then Kelly. If for whatever reason Kelly gets out of his cave and stops hiding, and be a man of his word, because he’s saying he wants to fight – his team wants to fight – and all of a sudden nobody wants to fight. If he wants to fight, we’re up for everybody.
“They said they wanted to fight. They called us out – his promoter; his manager; his coaches, everybody – to fight. As soon as we said, ‘Yes,’ everybody shut the hell up, and no one wants to fight.
“Josh Kelly’s also a very good fighter. He hasn’t been really proven with very high-level fighters, but we have to see him when he’s with me in a ring – that’s the only way. Any fighter that has managed to be in the top three or top five is very, very good – you don’t just get in there. But there again, styles make fights – you have to get in the ring with a certain person to know how good you are or how they work.
“It’s a little bit frustrating. But if you’re part of the team, part of the camp, you’d know what’s going on. We’ve been offered so many different fights – everybody calling me out – and then as soon as I say, ‘Yes – send us the papers,’ as soon as we receive the papers and the other party starts negotiating, they back out. Either their promoter or somebody comes out and says something. ‘Oh, we can’t fight – we have this,’ or, ‘We want to have an easy fight; this fight.’ Everybody has some kind of reason all of a sudden, but when it comes to typing on a keyboard or on a podcast or interview, everybody wants this. As soon as it becomes reality, nobody wants to be part of that reality.”
He was then asked about the extent to which a hand injury suffered in 2024 had delayed his return to the ring and contributed even further to the perception that he has become one of the world’s most avoided champions, and he responded: “That was a long time [ago], that was a week before the [Tszyu] fight – my right hand was broken. It’s healed now. But that’s over. After the fight, maybe the first six weeks [I was held back], but then we started, slowly, rehab, and I was ready to fight three months after the fight.
“The doctor recommended surgery – we didn’t even have surgery because I was thinking I’m going to fight. ‘I’m not going to do surgery because it’s going to take too long to recover so I won’t do surgery so I can get a fight right away.’ ‘No, I don’t want a surgery so I can fight fast’ – and look what happened.
“I don’t want to tell nobody they’re scared, or they’re this, or they’re that. I don’t like calling nobody names. You ask them why they don’t want to fight.
“Something’s going to happen soon and we’re going to be fighting. It’s not in our hands. I want to fight everybody – anybody, anywhere. It’s just, sometimes, boxing politics – it’s kind of hard.”
