Bakhram Murtazaliev Slams 'Joke' Josh Kelly While Opening Up About Fight Negotiations trucc

DURING 2024, Bakhram Murtazaliev became a world champion and then became a feared one, as consecutive knockout wins thrust the Russian into the super-welterweight spotlight. Now, upon reflection, he believes those career-best wins may have hampered him.

Murtazaliev, 23-0 (17 KOs), stepped up to take on Jack Culcay for the vacant IBF super-welterweight world title last April, following Jermell Charlo’s decision to vacate the belt.

In a gruelling and close encounter, the superior cardio of Murtazaliev eventually became clear, with Culcay struggling to lift his arms whilst his opponent threw relentlessly and earned a stoppage win in round 11.

Yet, despite winning the title inside the distance, during the period of Ramadan no less, there was a perception that Murtazaliev could be knocked off his perch by one of the bigger names in the division.

As a result, recently dethroned Aussie Tim Tszyu stepped up to the plate in an attempt to put an early end to Murtazaliev’s reign, and entered the ring as a firm favourite – but left it with his career in tatters.

Instead, Murtazaliev put in one of the most memorable performances of 2024 and floored Tszyu four times in three rounds before the shocking and merciless beatdown was brought to a close.

Speaking exclusively with Boxing News, Murtazaliev shared his realisation that his performance has caused his opportunities to defend the title to lessen, with few contenders truly willing to face him.

“It [my new reputation] is good for my career, but it is also not good because it is hard to get fights. Nobody wants to fight, and nobody wants to risk losing to me. 

“When I barely won the title, because of the circumstances with Ramadan and all of the pressure that they put me under, everybody wanted to fight me. 

“They thought that [performance] was it and that was me, now [after beating Tsyzu] all of sudden nobody wants to fight me anymore.”

That being said, recent reports have suggested that Murtazaliev will attempt a first defence of his world title against Sunderland’s Josh Kelly on the Canelo-Crawford undercard.

However, the 32-year-old poured cold water on those whispers, labelling Kelly and his team as ‘jokes’ and revealing that the Briton has stopped negotiating despite Murtazaliev agreeing to his side of the deal.

“Those people are jokes. They are calling me out and then as soon as I say ‘yes, I want to fight’, nobody is there, they all disappear. They’re big jokes, all of them.

“I want to fight [on the Canelo undercard], but there is no opponent, there is nothing coming up. We say yes to everything and as soon as we say ‘yes’, everybody changes their plans.”

“He is a very good fighter. He was a very good amateur, he was an Olympian, and he is a very good pro now, but we don’t get why they aren’t taking the fight. 

“They just wanted to hype up his name with talk of a world title and then disappear, maybe they are scared, maybe they don’t want to take a chance.

“If they wanted that fight, the fight could have been done anywhere. It is a big enough fight to do in America, England, Saudi Arabia or anywhere.

“If they really wanted the fight, after they started the talks, they should have finished them. We said ‘yes’, there is nothing else that we can say. My manager has now told me that they are not communicating, and they are not negotiating. 

“At this point, we don’t know. We did our part, 50% [of the deal] is done, which is us, now the other 50% is left.”

For now, the Grozny-born bogeyman patiently awaits another chance to lay down the gauntlet to his super-welterweight rivals and cement his claim of being the man to beat at 154lbs with another authoritative display.

Although, should the biggest fights continue to evade him, Murtazaliev declared his goal to eventually move up to the middleweight scene in search of multi-divisional world champion status.

“The plan is to keep him sharp, keep him ready, not ‘fight ready’ but ‘before camp ready’, so that if we get a call today for a fight in six weeks then we are ready to go.”

“I am going to try and do a couple more fights in this weight class. If there are no unifications or any other big fights coming for me then I have going to move up to 160lbs. 

“At this point right now, I want to try at super-welterweight. There are other belts, there are other champions and there are big fights to be made, let’s see what happens.”

Consequently, it seems as though Murtazaliev’s chances of fighting Kelly on the Canelo-Crawford bill are becoming less and less, unless ‘Pretty Boy’ and his team have a change of heart.