IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev’s trainer, Roma Kalataryan, says Bakhram wants a unification fight next against either the Errol Spence vs. Sebastian Fundora winner or Terence Crawford. The first choice for Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) would be to fight the Spence-Fundora winning.
Roma says that Murtazaliev is going to wait until next year to see if he can get a unification fight. If he fails to get one, he’ll move up to 160 and challenge WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara for his title.
Crawford is not expected to agree to fight Murtazaliev because it wouldn’t be a big-paying match because he is not a household name. The only thing that might persuade Crawford to change his mind is if His Excellency Turki Alalshikh offered him a lot of money to face Murtazaliev. We haven’t heard anything yet about Turki doing that.
If Spence defeats Fundora, he probably won’t agree to fight Murtazaliev either because he wants a rematch with Crawford. Spence will look in a different direction rather than take a dangerous fight against Murtazaliev and can knocked out.
Fundora would be Murtazaliev’s best bet, but even he might not want to because there are bigger fights available for him.
“He’s planning on unifying the titles. He doesn’t care about easy fights. He doesn’t want a nobody,” said trainer Roma Kalantaryan to the Against The Ropes YouTube channel about what his fighter Bakhram Murtazaliev wants next. “He said, ‘I’m unifying the titles. If I have to wait until next summer or the end of the year, I’ll wait because I just want to unify the titles.’
“We already finished the job as far as the mandatory goes because they [IBF] made it the mandatory, and we did it. So unifying the titles will be either the winner of Spence-Fundora and the second option is Terence Crawford,” said Roma about Murtazaliev wanting one of those fighters next.
“They’re all good fighters. None of them are an easy fight. None of them are a joke. That’s what he wants. If they don’t want that, ‘I’ll just go up. Give me Lara or one of the other champions.’ That’s what he wants,” said Roma.
Nothing is going to change for Murtazaliev if he moves up to 160. He’ll be avoided at middleweight, and the only way he’ll get the fights he wants is to keep impressing by scoring knockouts. Again, Turki Alalashikh could change all that if he shows interest in his career. Signing with one of the big name promoters would also help.
“You’ve got to understand this guy. They made him wait for almost five years. He was the mandatory for the IBF, WBA, and all of them. [Jermell] Charlo had all those belts. They threatened him with sanctions because he’s from Russia. The war started. They told him that it’s a unification fight, so you have to step aside and wait. Those are the rules.,” said Roma about former undisputed 154-lb champion Jermell Charlo putting Murtazaliev on hold.
It’s good that Murtazaliev finally got his opportunity to fight for the IBF belt and win it. It’s too bad that he’s now likely to be avoided by the other champions due to him being a high risk, low reward fighter. It’ll be the same situation for Murtazaliev at 160, too, but the difference is, there are no popular champions in that weight class.
“They’ve been holding it up for all these years. So, he finally gets his chance. He’s a champion. He’s like, ‘I don’t want to waste no time. I’m 31-years-old. I want to get this big fight,’” said Roma about Murtazaliev.
It would be a good idea for Murtazaliev to decide quickly to move up to 160 if it looks like there are no opportunities for any of the fighters on his hitlist to face him. He can move up and challenge Lara one of the other champions.
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