Lee Murray

[bripez]

On the cobbles though I would have fancied Murray against Ali.

Well that must be the most nuts comment I have ever read on the whole of the Internet !

[lillywhite14]

On the cobbles though I would have fancied Murray against Ali.

Well that must be the most nuts comment I have ever read on the whole of the Internet !

I suspect, there was a hint of piss taking in Coco's comments,

[Eddy]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

[lillywhite14]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

There's a variety of ways to lose in MMA though when compared to boxing. It's 'ok' as a 'striker' to lose by submission and vice versa.
Boxing is more ruthless when it comes to losses but it also sorts the men from the boys. If you can't cut it at the top you will get found out. Even now people talk about Lee Murray being some amazing, elite level fighter but from what I know he never beat anybody worth beating. All I ever read is punching an unaware Tito Ortiz in the street and holding children at gun point during a botched robbery as being credentials for being Britains greatest ever MMA fighter/boxer/one man army etc etc

Hype goes much further in MMA than in Boxing.

[reggaereggae]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

There's a variety of ways to lose in MMA though when compared to boxing. It's 'ok' as a 'striker' to lose by submission and vice versa.
Boxing is more ruthless when it comes to losses but it also sorts the men from the boys. If you can't cut it at the top you will get found out. Even now people talk about Lee Murray being some amazing, elite level fighter but from what I know he never beat anybody worth beating. All I ever read is punching an unaware Tito Ortiz in the street and holding children at gun point during a botched robbery as being credentials for being Britains greatest ever MMA fighter/boxer/one man army etc etc

Hype goes much further in MMA than in Boxing.

I don't think anyone's saying he's the best Brit MMA fighter, but several people report that he was a huge puncher.

[Monte Fisto]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

I have to say thats 1 thing about mma that I do appreciate. The 0 is pretty much irrelevant as records are not padded like boxing

[liamlion]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

There's a variety of ways to lose in MMA though when compared to boxing. It's 'ok' as a 'striker' to lose by submission and vice versa.
Boxing is more ruthless when it comes to losses but it also sorts the men from the boys. If you can't cut it at the top you will get found out. Even now people talk about Lee Murray being some amazing, elite level fighter but from what I know he never beat anybody worth beating. All I ever read is punching an unaware Tito Ortiz in the street and holding children at gun point during a botched robbery as being credentials for being Britains greatest ever MMA fighter/boxer/one man army etc etc

Hype goes much further in MMA than in Boxing.

Im not so sure about that. Usually everybody fights everybody in MMA whereas in boxing that isnt necessarily the case. Hype is a massive part of top level professional boxing.

[lillywhite14]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

There's a variety of ways to lose in MMA though when compared to boxing. It's 'ok' as a 'striker' to lose by submission and vice versa.
Boxing is more ruthless when it comes to losses but it also sorts the men from the boys. If you can't cut it at the top you will get found out. Even now people talk about Lee Murray being some amazing, elite level fighter but from what I know he never beat anybody worth beating. All I ever read is punching an unaware Tito Ortiz in the street and holding children at gun point during a botched robbery as being credentials for being Britains greatest ever MMA fighter/boxer/one man army etc etc

Hype goes much further in MMA than in Boxing.

Im not so sure about that. Usually everybody fights everybody in MMA whereas in boxing that isnt necessarily the case. Hype is a massive part of top level professional boxing.

Kimbo? Murray?
Perfect examples of mma fighters convincing people to go silly over them based on nothing.

Currently in boxing I guess you could say Wilder is the most hyped unproven fighter but he gets the chance to prove himself soon and has an olympic bronze to back it up somewhat.

[nfc90210]

To be fair, it was the wider public who were convinced that Kimbo was the baddest man on the planet. MMA fans far less so. Most people who followed MMA were aware that he'd get taken apart as soon as he got in with a real MMA fighter, which made Elite XC putting him in with Seth Petruzelli baffling.

When Ken Shamrock got cut on the day of the fight, if I recall the events correctly, there were three choices for a replacement opponent. Frank Shamrock who was doing commentary on the event wanted to the take the fight, there was also Aaron Rosa and Seth Petruzelli. Rosa and Petruzelli having been originally scheduled to fight one another.

Of those three choices Petruzelli was the worst. He was one of those guy who's much better than your average casual fan realises but who having been on TUF and having had a UFC stint, where he went 0-2, was a known quantity. There was no way, even with a win over Kimbo, that he could be sold as the next big thing. Rosa was a solid fighter who wasn't a world beater either, but at least at that stage in 2008 he was 11-2 with his two losses having occurring on ShoXc cards that no one watched.

A video of Joe Rogan watching the Kimbo/ Petruzelli fight live and predicting the outcome. It illustrates the opinion MMA fans had of Kimbo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHG8nPvegO0

Murray, on the other hand, was a good MMA fighter and was an interesting proposition. That's not to say that he would have dominated in the UFC and become a long term champion but when talking about him as a fighter you can base it more on more than hype. There were questions of course. However he was dangerous, he had natural gifts and he had heart. He went the distance with Anderson Silva two years prior to Silva turning up in the UFC and destroying Chris Leben. Looking back at Silva, with the benefit of hindsight, you can make a very good case that at the time of the Murray fight he was already the best 185 lber in the world. It's the Silva fight that convinces me that Murray could have been something at the UFC level. In that fight, in the third round, after Silva has taken his legs Murray proves that he isn't a guy who quits in fights when things go against him – that he is more than a bully with natural gifts. Plus, Murray beat Pele and Jorge Rivera. Who, while not top guys, were two very real guys. That makes talk of Murray as a "What If" something that you can debate.

I have always thought of Murray as potentially Chris Leben with more speed and better technical striking. I say potentially as Chris Leben hung at a very high level for a significant period of time and we never got to see Murray at that level for any length of time.

We don't know (for instance) how Murray would have done against those high-level grappler types that you inevitably run into in the UFC (and, for the record, I don't think he would have beaten Tito Ortiz in an MMA fight) but it's a real shame that we never got to find out. He had that one UFC fight and then couldn't get back into the US meaning his UFC career was done.

I think around the time that he got stabbed outside the Funky Budda that Cage Rage were thinking about doing Murray Vs Matt Lindland, which would have been a very interesting fight as that stage Lindland was still one of the best guys in he world. Alas, that never happened. Then, alas, Murray's career was over for the reasons we all know.

[liamlion]

Kimbo? Murray?
Perfect examples of mma fighters convincing people to go silly over them based on nothing.

Currently in boxing I guess you could say Wilder is the most hyped unproven fighter but he gets the chance to prove himself soon and has an olympic bronze to back it up somewhat.

I dont completely agree with you.

Kimbo was hyped massively before his involvement in MMA owing to his street fighting background. He was actually exposed in MMA and yet having been found out in MMA he soon moved onto boxing and still receives decent hype and kudos whilst he is almost frowned upon in MMA because he is such a limited all-round fighter. I recall Eddie Hearn previously mentioning him as a possible opponent for Audley.

In respect of Murray, he was a very decent MMA fighter and was selected to fight in the UFC, the pinnacle of the sport. He also fought against one of the all time great MMA fighters, Anderson Silva. Murray lasted the distance with Silva and far from embarrassed himself. The lad could really handle himself.

The reality is that street fighters are always going to attract hype whether they are in MMA or boxing. The fight game is all about hype, its what builds the anticipation.

[lillywhite14]

Kimbo was never hyped when he moved to Boxing. Being mooted as an opponent for Audley is hardly end of the rainbow stuff. He was just a name that Audley could beat up and might pull in a few casual fans who had seen him in his street fights/mma.

Did Murray get his chance in the UFC based on the Tito Ortiz thing? If so, then surely that's all about the hype!

I've not seen much of his fight with Silva, I've seen very little MMA, but if Silva was indeed the man, what had Murray done to warrant fighting him? Punched someone outside a nightclub and generally been a bit of a scallywag? His legion of Internet MMA fanatics and the hype associated with his lifestyle must have helped. From what I've seen of him ( a 'highlight' reel of a couple of knockouts and the Reid fight ) he looks like he should be able to fight a lot better than he actually does ( to be fair though, I'm talking about his "striking", I had heard he was rumoured to be a "great" boxer ) He's in great condition and certainly seems pumped up and ready to 'ave it'

[SAPFO]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

I know a an MMA fighter than had approx 9-7 MMA record, but blitzed everyone at a Ultimate Fighter tryout. Dana allegedly told him to go away and get 'some more wins' on his record. He did, he joined the UFC, was the first man to stop, and retire his hero.

So 'padding' can happen. I must say though, this is all alleged, and the lad certainly was not a padded record fighter.

[Michael bennt]

With MMA you can lose a good few times and it doesn't matter. A typical high profile fighter can have a record like 18,5. In boxing you lose once or twice and people say the fighter should retire.

I know a an MMA fighter than had approx 9-7 MMA record, but blitzed everyone at a Ultimate Fighter tryout. Dana allegedly told him to go away and get 'some more wins' on his record. He did, he joined the UFC, was the first man to stop, and retire his hero.

So 'padding' can happen. I must say though, this is all alleged, and the lad certainly was not a padded record fighter.

What is the fighters name who stopped his hero?

[SAPFO]

Vaughan Lee

[Tomasino]

Was his hero Kid Yamamoto? I know James Doolan who he drew against. Good fighter and has a great stable of fighters.

[Eddy]

The good thing about MMA and losing not being that important is that you won't get prospects being protected or fighters dodging others to keep their 0s. Boxing you know the pattern = half decent fighter will be protected from dangerouse or decent opposistion for 3 or 4 years from his promotor & mamager. Unless there's a upset which does happen but is rare.

[matko]

He also drew with chris P bacon in MMA who was a good all round fighter with great judo background which he competed in the olympics, he was a good tough boxer too from Manchester who was always exciting to watch, his boxing Fight with Tony Moran (Another fighter who did MMA) was a belter

[SAPFO]

Was his hero Kid Yamamoto? I know James Doolan who he drew against. Good fighter and has a great stable of fighters.

Yes, feking fairy tale doing that in the Saitama Super Arena, in Kid's back yard. When he was just a seasoned Brit MMArtist, in his gym UTC, there was an absolutely massive Kid Yamamoto HERO's poster. He ended up being the first man to finish him, and looks like he retired him too. I would have retired there and then. Yes, Leon "Rocky" Edwards is now signed to the UFC. Brutal stand up fighter, and Bamma WW Champ when he left. There is another kid named Aaron Lovell who is one to watch, as he will be a high level boxer in the cage.

[Eddy]

[hurlock]

Guarantee one million percent this is bs. As for Reid he ain't no hard man bully gangster type but he can fight and is one strong durable bar steward!!he beat Murray as he gassed badly & Murray was a novice at that time

[Michael bennt]

Apparently this is footage out there do Murray sparring Dannie Williams and julienne Francis. Would be great to see

[Coco]

Stick him in with Prince Patel

[Eddy]

I wonder what he'll do when he gets out. Can't see him fighting again in the UFC,the job prospects don't look good.

[ERIC GUY]

I filmed some of the sparring in Crayford!!,, maybe thats where rumours start???
Lee was a good fighter, Danny and Julius just moved around with him, they are good heavyweights, I know that Wayne did try to take libertys with him, but I was not there that day, he could have done well if he went into Boxing,

[Michael bennt]

I filmed some of the sparring in Crayford!!,, maybe thats where rumours start???
Lee was a good fighter, Danny and Julius just moved around with him, they are good heavyweights, I know that Wayne did try to take libertys with him, but I was not there that day, he could have done well if he went into Boxing,

Can you post up some of the sparring footage would be brilliant to see