Sergio Mora was surprised by IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev last weekend, saying he reminded Alexis Arguello of the way he looked when he destroyed former WBO champion Tim Tszyu in three rounds at the Caribe Royale Resort, Orlando, Florida.
Straight punches by Murtazaliev
Commentator Mora says he saw in the first minute and twenty seconds of the fight that Tszyu was in trouble because Murtazaliev looked Arguello-esque, throwing short punches with precision. Tszyu made things easy for Murtazaliev by going to him and trying to fight, but he was destroyed.
Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) entered the fight with a broken knuckle on his right hand, which is usually a major weapon in his arsenal. He adjusted well from the injury, using his left hook to repeatedly drop Tszyu (24-2, 17 KOs) to the canvas in a four-fight losing streak.
Mora feels it was a poor matchup for Tszyu’s team to choose to match him against the powerful Murtazaliev in his first fight after his first loss against 6’6″ Sebastian Fundora on March 30. He feels Tszyu should have been given a confidence boost instead.
“In the first minute of the first round, I can see that this man is going to give Tim Tszyu problems,” Sergio Mora said on Chris Mannix’s YouTube channel, referring to Bakhram Murtazaliev’s destruction of Tim Tszyu last weekend.
“It took me one minute and twenty seconds to realize that this boy was going to have a headache. He had a laser-like right hand, an uppercut, and a hook, which he ended up taking down. He reminded me of the first minute when he missed that right hand, then threw a left hook like Alexis Arguello. “
Murtazaliev did not use his right hand much in the fight. Most of the big punches he threw were with his left hook, and it was like he was fighting with one arm.
“They are like a laser, they do not waste space, and the method of operation is perfect. It’s not the speed that gets you; it’s not the power he gets. Time and accuracy. That’s what I saw from Murtazaliev when he missed the first right hand, then he threw a left hook and caught that right,” said Mora.
It was surprising to see how well Murtazaliev fought up close because taller fighters usually need a lot of space to generate power with their punches. That was not the case with Murtazaliev. He seemed to be boxing much closer than he did outside, and that was strange but painful.
“I said, ‘This person is going to be a problem.’ Even though they didn’t come well, it was going to be a long night for Tim Tszyu. “It ended up being a short night because it ended up being a three-round fight that he was in control of, but the balance is bad because he’s going from a 6’6″ southpaw to an unknown, strong, undefeated Russian title holder,” said Mora.
Tszyu doesn’t seem to have done any research on Murtazaliev’s past fights to know what he’s getting himself into by fighting this guy. If he had looked at his recent victory over Jack Culcay, he would have rejected him as an opponent.
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