By Terence Dooley
John Murray put a frustrating seven months of inactivity behind him to sweep to a clear victory over the impossibly brave Gary Buckland at the Kingsway Leisure Centre, Widnes on Friday night. Murray (134¼lb) ground his Welsh opponent to a halt at 1:46 of the eleventh round with Buckland (134¾lb) still protesting despite a well-timed, and compassionate, stoppage from referee Marcus McDonnell.
Manchester’s Murray, who came into the ring the current British champion, had worked long and hard on a pre-fight plan of attack that relied heavily on right hooks to the body and head of Buckland. Indeed, Murray opened his account for the night with a solid right hook to the body of ‘Dynamo’ only for Gary to serve notice of his own attacking intent by landing a solid right hand of his own towards the end of the session.
Although often dismissed by critics as a one-paced marauder, Murray had to move onto the back foot on occasion due to Buckland’s Kamikaze attempt to take the fight straight to his bigger, stronger foe.
Indeed, Gary may have based his pre-fight plan on the strategy employed by Diego Corrales in that 2005 classic with Jose Luis Castillo; ‘Chico’ went at the Mexican pressure fighter and fought up-close in the hope of knocking the stuffing out of Castillo before ‘El Temible’ could build up his customary head of steam. On that occasion the plan worked, just; Buckland, however, is not Corrales and lacked the core strength needed to make this approach work to his advantage.
Buckland, in taking it to Murray early, did himself a disservice by adopting this strategy, though you can see why he did this given fears that Murray may be tight at the weight, yet Gary’s pressuring attacks and refusal to give ground created an intense, if one-sided, spectacle for the fans.
This do-or-die approach from Buckland was meat and drink for Murray, who ripped home body shot after body shot, some right on the, admittedly high, beltline of Buckland, in the early going and landed over a hundred blows to his opponent’s fleshy flanks throughout the course of the eleven torrid rounds. Though the stronger man, John was happy to cede ground at times in order to walk Buckland onto the type of counter punches that had taken Jon Thaxton out in Murray’s last fight.
Gary had pushed himself hard in his last contest, a twelve round points win over Sam Rukundo, and his corner seemed convinced that the major chink in Murray’s amour was the fact that John had never travelled the championship distance, only going ten rounds twice in his career, against Moebi Sarouna and Miguel Angel Munguia respectively.
However, this gamble put Buckland in jeopardy, as his team were unwilling to do the right thing and pull their man from the fray when it was painfully clear that their plan was not going to work. A sole member of the travelling Welsh contingent, who had largely fallen quiet by the mid-rounds, taunted Murray’s fans by singing songs about Gary’s defiance. This guy saw his man’s ability to take the punishment as part of some moral victory but you don’t expect to see this brand of doomed defiance from professional cornermen.
Rounds seven and eight, with Buckland bleeding from the mouth and developing facial swelling from the sixth onwards, a round in which Murray ripped home meaty right uppercuts, presented Buckland’s team with the perfect opportunity to pull their man out, he was way behind on points and although he had landed some lovely shots there were no signs that he had the power to dent Murray’s chin, nor that Murray was going to slow down.
The 23-year-old looked confused in the corner during these sessions, asking more than once how many rounds he had left only for the training team to tell the fighter that they were holding out on him landing a bingo shot to Murray’s chin. Easy for the corner to be cavalier, after all it was Buckland taking the shots. Consequently, in the final two rounds especially, the fight became a harrowing spectacle with Buckland’s odd success with the left and right hand sparking Murray into dispensing his own brand of punishment.
Marcus McDonnell checked on Buckland between some of the more sweltering stanzas before stepping in at the just the right moment as Buckland was, again, taking clean shots. Murray celebrated, Buckland half-heartedly protested and many, this writer included, expressed fears that those final punishing few rounds had added unnecessary wear and tear to Buckland’s boxing clock; the Welshman can come back from this but he has no business up at lightweight and should dip down to the super-featherweight division, where his buzz saw style may reap dividends. Gary is now 18-2 (6 early); Murray is undefeated with a 29-0 (17 KOs) record.
Murray benefited from the generosity of Buckland’s corner, he wanted rounds and he got them, declaring that he will be sharper for them should he take on Adrei Kudriatsev, who withdrew from negotiations for a proposed EBU title fight due to illness, within the next ninety days. Britain may be stuck under a hung parliament but Murray showed no signs of labour during this win, although there are those who feel that his pace is a little bit too conservative to challenge the division’s top boys.
“I’m really pleased,” declared Murray when reflecting on the fight. “I wanted to get the rounds out and get rid of the rust. I’ll crack on and be back in the gym next week. I expected him to be tough as he’s young and ambitious and this was a massive opportunity for him. I did what I have to do and you have to be at your best when you’ve got that type of guy in front of you. This was not an old ‘been up the hill and coming down the other side’ type of fighter, he was coming up and wanted to prove his worth so I had to beat the fight out of him.
“With having such a long break you miss that little bit of snap and that ability to work your way through the gears, that ability to get off three and fours. When I did try getting through the gears I felt a little bit flat so I just tried to work through it. I wanted to up the gears and tried to get him out of there but felt a little out of it – I’m sure I’ll be miles better next time.”
Still, Murray had plenty to be pleased about, with most observers giving Gary only one or two rounds and even those stolen sessions came at a huge physical cost for Gary.
“He was open to the right hook and right uppercut and I worked them well”, admitted Murray, “he caught me with a few left hooks but, like Joe [Gallagher] says, class is permanent and form is temporary so I knew I’d come through and that is why I got him out off there in the end. I was landing cleanly to the body and could see those shots taking their toll on him but he was so young and hungry and didn’t want to give anything up to me. I just kept going at him.”
The newly minted EBU boss confirmed that he had decided to cede some ground to Buckland at tactically chosen moments in order to walk his man onto shots but was always keen to finish each session in the ascendancy.
“I’ve worked on boxing on the back foot and didn’t want to engage him too early in the rounds, I wanted to pick shots and points up early before going into the trenches with him late in the rounds,” revealed the 25-year-old.
“I thought I won every single round in there and was very happy with the performance, I kept him under control and the referee did very well to stop it. Gary was taking some really heavy shots; he is only young and has a career ahead of him so he doesn’t need to ship that punishment. I’ll be moving on soon so he can comeback and do well at lightweight or super-featherweight.
“I’m looking at defending this European title and then want to be knocking on the door of the world champions in twelve months time. I broke into The Ring top ten and that is a milestone moment, this is another one – now I want to knock the doors down to challenge these big, world-class fighters.
“I don’t think I need a rest after that tonight, the rounds did me no harm and next time you see me fight you’ll see a different class again. I boxed [Scott] Lawton [in June] and then took Thaxton on within four months and you could see the difference in my class in those two fights.”
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