{"id":17609,"date":"2026-01-31T22:52:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17609"},"modified":"2026-01-31T22:52:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:52:37","slug":"murtazaliev-vs-kelly-britains-josh-kelly-wins-ibf-light-middleweight-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17609","title":{"rendered":"Murtazaliev vs Kelly: Britain’s Josh Kelly wins IBF light-middleweight title"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Britain’s Josh Kelly put on a slick and brave performance to beat Bakhram Murtazaliev and win the IBF light-middleweight title by majority decision in Newcastle.<\/b><\/p>\n

It was a trademark Kelly display as he danced around the ring, displaying devastating speed and high ring IQ – knowing when to engage and when to get on his heels.<\/p>\n

Both fighters hit the canvas with Murtazaliev going down in the fourth and Kelly in the ninth. The Briton went down a further two times late in the fight, but both were ruled as slips.<\/p>\n

Two judges scored the bout 115-111 and 114-113 in Kelly’s favour with the other having it down as a 113-113 draw. <\/p>\n

Murtazaliev looked to have got to grips with Kelly’s evasive style in the latter rounds, but the home fighter rallied in the last three minutes to end strongly.<\/p>\n

Kelly, who becomes Sunderland’s first world champion, sprinted to embrace trainer Adam Booth when the result was announced before grabbing the belt and raising it up to the 4,000-strong crowd.<\/p>\n

“It feels like a dream. I envisioned this,” Kelly told BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n

“I was praying a couple of days ago, envisioned the fight, and I had deja vu of the knockdown in the tenth round.<\/p>\n

“I had to concentrate – I feel overwhelmed. I need to take a second backstage to gather myself. I’m mentally exhausted.”<\/p>\n

Kelly takes the UK’s tally of reigning male world champions to six, alongside heavyweight Fabio Wardley, welterweight Lewis Crocker, super-featherweight Jazza Dickens, featherweight Nick Ball and light-welterweight Dalton Smith.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old extends his winning streak to eight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Murtazaliev #Kelly #Britains #Josh #Kelly #wins #IBF #lightmiddleweight #title<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Britain’s Josh Kelly put… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}