Martin Murray defeats Gabriel Rosado by controversial decision

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Former four time world title challenger Martin Murray (35-4-1, 16 KOs) won a 12 round majority decision victory against former world title challenger Gabriel Rosado (23-11, 13 KOs) on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. The scoring by 2 of the judges seemed way out of whack to what fight that actually took place tonight.

The judges scored the fight 114-114, 119-109 and 116-112. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 7 rounds to 5 for Rosado. Murray’s victory allowed him to keep his WBA Intercontinental middleweight title. I thought Rosado did enough in the last 6 rounds to squeak by with a narrow victory. Rosado went on the attack big time in rounds 9-12, and had Murray covering up to try and keep from getting pummeled. Rosado, 31, was definitely the stronger guy in the last 4 rounds. With the last 4 rounds, along with 3 rounds in the first half of the fight, I had Rosado winning a close decision.

The scoring by the judge that had Murray winning 119-109 was very odd to say the least. Rosado was furious after the fight with the judge that scored the match 11 rounds to 1 in favor or Murray. Rosado complained bitterly afterwards, which you can’t blame him one bit. Murray and Rosado argued back and forth after the fight. Murray started blabbering about this and that, and Rosado took exception with it and he pointed out to him that he should have won the fight. Murray seemed to think he deserved to win by 9 rounds to 3. I don’t know where Murray came up with that.

Rosado was nailing Murray with shots all night long. In the 11th, Murray started teeing off with low blows. The referee Howard John Foster had to warn Murray about that. I saw low blows from Murray all throughout the fight. I’m not sure why the referee didn’t take points off. This is the same referee that twice deducted points from Darleys Perez in round 11 and 12 in his first fight with Anthony Crolla.

Rosado was landing some beautiful head shots in rounds 1 through 8. The punches were connecting to the head of Murray, causing him to stop moving forward completely. Rosado did an excellent job of getting his shots around Murray’s clam-shell guard to connect to the head.

”I think I won,” said Rosado after the fight. ”You hit me low in my cup 4 times because you wanted a break.”

I have to give Rosado credit for handling the low blows from Murray without getting in the gutter and firing off some low blows of his own in a pay back. Rosado took the high road by showing class and staying above fouling.

Murray didn’t seem to like hearing Rosado tell him what he thought of his fighting style after the fight, because he kept interrupting him and not letting him say what he wanted to say. It was supposed to be a conversation, but Murray kept cutting Rosado off and talking over him, making it impossible to hear what either of them was saying. The interviewer needed to tell Murray to wait his turn and let Rosado do the talking, because Murray had already been interviewed first. He cut into Rosado’s interview time.

“I was saying all along I’m a level above,” said Murray afterward. “I thought I won it clearly. I gave him 3 rounds, 4 rounds. All week long he was blabbering.”

I wish I could agree with Murray, but I can’t. He only won 6 rounds on my scorecard, and one of those rounds was one that could have gone Rosado’s way. I gave it to Murray because the boxing fans were yapping like crazy after he landed a few shots in round 5. In my opinion, Rosado did enough to win the round, but the crowd was cheering like mad, and I figured the judges would give the round to Murray. In my own scoring, I had Rosado edging the fight 7 rounds to 5. I thought he landed the more effective punches, and was the busier fighter. Murray was like he always was in covering up behind his clam-shell guard and not letting his hands go in proper fashion.

It was always going to be hard for the visitor Rosado to try and get a ‘W’ with him going into the lion’s den to fight in front of a hostile pro-Murray crowd. It was immediately clear that Rosado was up against it when he walked into the ring and was immediately booed by many of the boxing fans in the crowd. In contrast, when the 34-year-old Murray walked out, he was showered by cheers from the adoring fans. It was like night and day with the love the fighters were given by the fans.

During the fight, the fans cheered each time Murray would land something. Even if it wasn’t a big punch, the fans were cheering their heads off, which had an echo effect in magnifying the shots that Murray was landing. To me, Rosado did the better work and landed the harder punches by far. It didn’t matter that in some rounds Murray appeared to connect with more shots. I thought Rosado’s punches were landing with more force and a lot more cleanly.

With the win tonight, Murray will likely be pushed up the rankings in the middleweight division. That could be interpreted as a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you want to look at it. Knowing that Gennady “GGG” Golovkin is still holding down the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC titles, I don’t think it would be a good idea for Murray to fight him again in this lifetime. Murray was already whipped by Golovkin in an 11th round knockout 2 years ago in 2015. That fight showed clearly that Golovkin is a much better fighter than Murray.

A lumped Murray tried to say afterwards that Golovkin didn’t hit as hard as he thought he would. Golovkin certainly hit Murray hard enough to knock him out. A rematch would likely be worse. If Murray is going to fight for another middleweight title, I’d much prefer it be WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders. The thing is, Saunders has been ordered by the World Boxing Organization to fight back to back mandatory challengers.

His first mandatory will be Avtandil Khurtsidze. As such, Murray will have to wait a long, long time before he gets a crack against Saunders if he gets a shot against him at all.

It’ll be interesting to see if Murray can get an unheard of 5th wo4rld title shot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a fighter get that many title shots without once winning a world title. I don;t know how Murray keeps getting title shots, because I haven’t seen him ever beat a really good contenders to get ranked high enough to fight for a world title. If Murray is going to get a 5th world title fight, I’d at least like to see him beat someone better than Rosado. I’m just saying. I’d like to see Murray prove that he can beat Jermall Charlo or Daniel Jacobs. That’s all I ask. Just prove that you can beat Charlo and/or Jacobs, and then I’ll say that Murray rates a fifth title defense. Is that asking for too much? The last time I checked, Rosado isn’t ranked at all in the top 15. At least with Jacobs and Charlo, they’re both highly rated and doing well with their careers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were willing to travel to Liverpool to fight Murray if the money was there.