Martin Murray: Groves blames everyone else, will crumble when it gets tough

The main event next week in London is Anthony Joshua vs Dominic Breazeale for the IBF heavyweight title, but the fight that many diehard boxing fans are most looking forward to seeing is a clash of super middleweights when George Groves (23-3, 18 KO) takes on Martin Murray (33-3-1, 16 KO).

It’s a meeting of contenders looking to stay contenders, and something of a make-or-break fight for both men, who have had good careers already but come up short in seven world title fights between the pair, four for Murray and three for Groves.

Murray, for his part, is certainly sounding ready to go, and pretty much trashed Groves recently when speaking about his opponent.

Here are the quotes from the Matchroom release:

“I’ve been in bigger fights than him all over the world against better opposition. The fact that his name comes first means nothing to me – I’m a 33 year old grown man, how’s that going to bother me?

“He got his name by losing twice to Carl Froch and that’s how he’s the a-side. If I’m not established enough as a World class fighter as it stands now, I’m going to get it when I beat George, even though I’ve been in the bigger and tougher fights than him, that’s the way it is. He thinks that the 80,000 tickets at Wembley were down to him, nothing to do with Carl.

“I don’t think he should’ve left Adam Booth. He finds it easy to pass the blame. He blamed the referee after the first Froch fight, he blamed a ‘punch from the gods’ for the second fight and blamed Paddy Fitzpatrick for the Jack loss.

“After Badou Jack I heard he was talking about retiring. He’s come back and had two fights where he’s been firing at sitting ducks where there’s been nothing coming back at him, so he’s got his confidence back now, and that makes now he thinks that this is an easy fight; but it’s not, and when it gets tough he will crumble. I want him to keep thinking that it’s easy, because he’ll find out next Saturday how wrong he is and I can’t wait to prove it.”

So now if you weren’t already excited enough for a well-matched fight, there’s something pretty real simmering here, too.