MARTIN MURRAY will fight former two-weight world champion Arthur Abraham for a second time on November 12 in Monaco.
The pair are set to fight in Monte Carlo in a rematch of their November 2015 encounter, which saw Abraham retain his WBO world super-middleweight title on a split decision.
Stephen Smith is set to fight Jason Sosa elsewhere on the bill and though Abraham has relinquished his title to Gilberto Ramirez since fighting Murray, the St Helens man is pleased about his chance at revenge.
“I’ve known about it for a while, I’m over the moon. Obviously after the first fight, I thought I won it. Looking back there are certainly things I would change,” he told Boxing News.
“Maybe I was too cautious in Germany, I was doing things that I didn’t need to do. It was one of those things. I’ve been dead set on the rematch, I knew he had to fight Ramirez first thought and obviously he got beat so he’s not got a belt.”
Murray fought George Groves in a WBA eliminator earlier this year but after 12 gruelling rounds dropped a unanimous decision.
He considered dropping back to middleweight, where he has also previously boxed for world honours, though is grateful to have another big opportunity at 168lbs in what is set to be a WBO eliminator.
“It’s a big fight for me, I wanted to go straight back into one after the Groves fight,” he continued.
“I massively under-performed, I’ve got regrets obviously but I just wasn’t right, I peaked four weeks before and I was flat come fight night. I overtrained basically so that’s something I’ll never do again.
“I’ve got to put things right and I wanted to go straight into a big fight, and this is that. I’m over the moon. The first fight was a good fight, at first I thought I’d definitely won but now, looking back, I think ‘why leave it so close in Germany?’
“I’ve got a chance to put it right, and the biggest thing is that is’s on neutral ground so you’d like to think that it would get scored fairly.”
