Bakhram Murtazaliev says he plans to move up to 160 pounds to challenge Erislandy Lara for his WBA middleweight title because the other two champions at 154 are busy.
IBF Junior middleweight champion Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) was seemingly frozen out by top fighters at 154, ignored and sidetracked.
Too dangerous?
Bakhram’s third-round knockout of former WBO champion Tim Tszyu on October 19 might have scared off any contenders or champions who might have been willing to fight before that demolition job. It’s better to stay at 154 pounds because you won’t have better luck going up to middleweight.
Unfortunately for Murtazaliev, it is unlikely that the 41-year-old Lara (31-3-3, 19 KOs) will agree to fight him as well. Lara hasn’t fought a top-level opponent in seven years since his loss to Jarrett Hurd in 2018.
Over the past seven years, Lara has feasted on lesser fighters, including Danny Garcia, Michael Zerafa, Thomas Lamanna, Gary O’Sullivan, Greg Vendetti and Ramon Alvarez.
Unless someone like Turki Al-Sheikh takes notice of Murtazaliev to help him get fights, he will be locked into defending whoever his management can dig up in the IBF rankings. It is good and bad.
If no good fighters ever want to fight Murtazaliev, he can hold his IBF 154-lb title for years without losing. But on the downside, he won’t make the big bucks he could get if the better known guys were willing to fight.
The cost of avoidance
Before beating Tszyu, Murtazaliev was a professional for ten years, fighting little-known opposition. Although he never lost, his career went nowhere.
I wasn’t connected with one of the big promotion companies, and that hurt. Promoters such as Eddie Hearn and Top Rank would also have had a lot of trouble getting Murtazaliev to fight because he would have been seen as too dangerous for other fighters to face him.
When you’re as good as Murtazaliev, sometimes it pays not to look that good because then you can take fights.
If the two champions at 154 have found opponents, maybe move up to 160 and take Lara’s belt?
— bakhram murtazaliev (@bakhram95) January 13, 2025
