JOHN MURRAY vs JON THAXTON

After losing his British lightweight title on the scales in June, John Murray attempts to win back the championship when he meets veteran Jon Thaxton on Saturday, with TV coverage on ITV4 in the U.K.

It looks bad when a young fighter such as Murray fails to make weight, but he was only marginally over the limit and it seemed more a mix-up than anything. As I understand it, he was delayed in traffic, got to the weigh-in later than anticipated and didn’t have enough time to shed the slight excess.

There was nothing wrong with Murray’s performance that night as he overpowered game journeyman Scott Lawton in six rounds.

Saturday’s fight with Thaxton is for the vacant title. Thaxton also held the title but he relinquished it to focus on the European championship, which he won at the second attempt a year ago.

Had Thaxton fought Murray then it would have been a much more intriguing contest. The bout has lost some of its attractiveness after two successive losses suffered by Thaxton, but it has interest — a respected, long-serving professional going in against an unbeaten fighter who has stopped his last three opponents.

Murray, 24, is a busy-punching pressure fighter from Manchester in northwest England who wears down his opponents. Thaxton, 35, from Norfolk in eastern England, has far greater experience and has fought much tougher opposition, including a blood-spattered points defeat against Ricky Hatton nine years ago.

Thaxton moved down from the light-welter division to box as a lightweight in 2002 and for a while he seemed to be boxing than ever, with 12 wins in a row, but Yuri Romanov was too strong and talented for him in their European title fight. Although a cut over Thaxton’s eye caused the fight to be halted it seemed that he was on his way to getting stopped.

To Thaxton’s great credit, he came back with a spectacular win in his next fight when bombing out Juan Carlos Diaz Melero in three rounds to win the European title, which Romanov vacated in the hope of boxing in a world title eliminator.

Just when it seemed that Thaxton was back at the top of his form, things went wrong. First, Thaxton was outhustled by Frenchman Anthony Mezaache to lose the European title and then, in a catchweight bout, he lost again, although narrowly, when the much bigger Tom Glover proved a bit too strong for him.

Saturday’s fight is a last chance for Thaxton. If he loses there will be nowhere to go, and I am expecting him to come into the ring prepared to give a big-hearted and determined effort.

Murray is the clear favourite — he is younger, undefeated and in fine form, and he also has home advantage at Altrincham in Greater Manchester. This fight is not a formality, though. Thaxton is a good puncher, and he has an unorthodox cleverness, a southpaw who frequently switches to the orthodox posture and throws punches from unexpected angles.

I am expecting Murray to go forward, gloves up, in his usual manner and seek to break down the older man with pressure and body punches. Murray can be a bit hittable, though, and Thaxton is surely the heaviest puncher that he has faced. Although Thaxton lost to Mezaache he had the French fighter down and almost out in the first round. Murray had better make sure that he keeps a tight guard in this fight or he could find himself on the floor.

The early rounds will most likely be the ones in which Thaxton is at his most dangerous, but Murray knows this and I don’t think he will charge in recklessly. Thaxton might win most of the early rounds but I think that Murray will start to take over after the fight goes past the midway mark, when his relentless pace and fast, high-volume punching should begin to tell on an opponent who has been boxing professionally for almost 17 years. I’ll take Murray to grind down Thaxton in nine, perhaps 10, rounds.