Martin Murray believes his gym-mate Rocky Fielding has the perfect game-plan to beat Callum Smith when the two unbeaten Super Middleweights clash for the vacant British title at the Echo Arena in Liverpool on November 7, live on Sky Sports.
Murray and Fielding train with Oliver Harrison in Salford and the St Helens man, who is preparing for his WBO World title challenge against Arthur Abraham on November 28 in Germany, says he’s seen Fielding improve day-by-day in the gym and that he’ll come out on top of a hard fight in Liverpool.
“It’s going to be down to who as the best game-plan and who can stick to it – and they have the perfect combination of Oliver’s game-plan and Rocky being the right man to execute it,” said Murray.
“I’ve seen him and Oliver working intensely over the last few weeks and it looks like it is paying off. We have done a bit of tech sparring together to work on some stuff and you can see that the game-plan is working for him.
“It’s a tough fight and full credit to them for taking it, they could’ve easily avoided each other and gone down different paths but they are putting their unbeaten records on the line and that’s brilliant. I think it’ll be a tough 12-round hard fight, I don’t think it will be one-way traffic at all, they will both have spells of success in there.
“Callum is a top fighter; there’s no disputing that. He might be a slight favourite; it looks 50-50 to many people but a lot of folks just favour Callum. I don’t know whether that’s because he’s maybe got a bigger profile or they’ve seen more of him on Sky Sports, but I train with Rocky every day and I know what he is capable of, and if you ask Scott Quigg or Anthony Crolla who they think will win and they will say, Callum, because they see what he can do every day.
“I know though that when it comes to tough fights, Rocky raises his game, and I think that he will raise his game on November 7. There’s a lot of pressure on them both coming from Liverpool and taking each other on, Liverpool has the best fights fans in England in my opinion and had one of them avoided the other then they would have copped a lot of stick, so they’ve chosen to collide head on and it’s a great fight for everyone involved. There’s going to be a loser but they are both young enough to come again – and if it’s a good fight, they can do it again.
“I know the Smith family well and they are all top lads. I’ll be ringside on the night and I will be nervous for Rocky, but I am confident he can do the job.”
Fielding’s clash with Smith tops a massive night of boxing on Merseyside with the coveted Lord Lonsdale belt taking centre stage as Scotty Cardle defends his Lightweight title against local favourite Sean ‘Masher’ Dodd.
Ricky Burns can take a huge step towards reclaiming his WBO World Lightweight title when he faces Josh King for the Inter-Continental Lightweight title, Prizefighter champion Tom Doran meets Rod Smith in an eliminator for the British Middleweight title and unbeaten Lightweight talent Ohara Davies faces Chris Truman.
Limited tickets are sale now at the Echo Arena website www.echoarena.com and on 0844 8000 400 – priced £40, £60, £80, £100 and £150.
Tickets for November 7 are available from http://www.stubhub.co.uk/matchroom-boxing-tickets/ – StubHub is the official ticket partner and marketplace of Matchroom Boxing and Anthony Joshua.
