Murtazaliev vs Kelly Predictions: Redemption or a reckoning in Newcastle?

Josh Kelly gets the chance of a lifetime this Saturday, January 31 as he takes on IBF super welterweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev. The Sunderland lad heads up the road to the Utilita Arena in Newcastle for his date with destiny. DAZN will screen the world title fight live.

Read on for my Murtazaliev vs Kelly predictions ahead of a big night in the North East.

Murtazaliev vs Kelly Odds

The champion is 4/11 to secure the win on away soil. Kelly’s tall task has a 12/5 shot of success according to the oddsmakers. The draw is on the market at 14/1.

Murtazaliev vs Kelly Fight Preview

Some fighters find their path to this sort of chance a smooth one. Almost preordained. Like the prospective champion just has to hit their marker from debut to belt and they’ll become champion. This has not been the case for Josh Kelly.

The Sunderland boxer has been plagued by uncertainty in his career. He has detailed a reliance on antibiotics and alcohol in the past as a means of coping with the immense pressures this sport brings. Fans are quick to play armchair expert on a Saturday night, but these are human beings with human concerns and human emotions. There are beating hearts behind those sweat-flecked chests, taut in the heat of battle.

Kelly looked extremely human in 2021, when then-European champion David Avanesyan blighted a bright start to stop the Brit in six rounds. It was the sort of defeat that can break a career. But the evidence seems to suggest that painful loss at Wembley Arena was the making of the ‘Pretty Boy’.

The 31-year-old has boxed seven times since, winning the magnificent lot. During that four-year spell, Kelly inflicted the first defeat on Troy Williamson, the current European champion up at super middleweight. He out-scored Ishmael Davis at Wembley Stadium, the grand stadium condemning the adjacent arena and its ghosts into the shadows.

Kelly punched his ticket to the title with a first-round knockout of Romanian fringe name Flavius Biea last June. Now the ‘Pretty Boy’ mans up against a fearsome world champion.

Murtazaliev had a quiet 2025, beset by frustration as fight after fight fell through. Names like Vergil Ortiz Jr and Erickson Lubin were mooted, but the former demurred and the latter withdrew from the purse bids for his IBF mandatory shot. Ortiz and Lubin went on to fight each other, leaving the unbeaten Russian in the cold.

It is sad to see a talented, ascendant champion blighted by the politics of this finicky sport. Murtazaliev is coming off the two biggest wins of his career, both by stoppage. In April 2024, he stopped former WBA champion Jack Culcay in 11 rousing rounds to lift the vacant IBF 154lbs belt.

Murtazaliev followed that banner performance up by beasting heavyweight favourite Tim Tszyu in a savage first title defence. Betfred had the Australian as a 2/13 favourite when the preview went to press. But Murtazaliev tore up the script, and the former WBO champ, to retain his newly-won crown.

Two knockouts over former world champions should have given Murtazaliev momentum. Instead, it seemed to dissuade the division’s prospective challengers from engaging him. But Kelly is made of sterner stuff.

The British boxer has been through brutal battles in and out of the ring. With Avanesyan. With Davis. With self-medication. With his own mind. Kelly has come out of these travails still standing, ready to walk to the ring for the biggest opportunity of his life.

In the other corner is Murtazaliev. A dominant champion who has had to battle the frustration of being unfairly ignored. White-hot fury has a way of melting the rust off a pair of gloves. The champion is ravenous going into this one. 

Two warriors, then. Let’s hope that their 12 rounds of combat match the intense will each man has shown in the face of the vagaries of this kaleidoscopic sport.

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Murtazaliev vs Kelly Prediction

If you are not scared of Murtazaliev, you simply haven’t watched the man fight. Do yourself a favour, stick on the Tszyu mauling and hide behind your sofa. Four knockdowns. A career in tatters at the hands of Saturday’s champion.

What Murtazaliev gives you is ruthless orthodoxy. The jab is potent. The guard is tight. But he does leave that head on a straight line. Kelly can use that. He can find it.

‘Pretty Boy’ boxes like the name suggests. Shoulder rolls, dancing feet, jabs thrown from the waist. As likely to swivel as he is to block. Fighters like that can get found out in this environment. But Kelly’s tricks are road-tested and hard men have been flummoxed by them.

This will either be a reckoning or a redemption. I’m leaning towards the restorative waters of the latter. That is where Kelly can bathe. I fancy the home fighter to eke out a decision, frustrating Murtazaliev with the sort of handspeed Ishmael Davis struggled to find an answer for. I’m taking Kelly on points at 18/5.

You can find all our latest boxing betting tips and analysis at our Betfred Insights Boxing page and our latest boxing odds here.