Karapet Muradyan (; born 2 September 1983), best known as Karo Murat (), is a German Armenian professional boxer who held the IBO light-heavyweight title in 2018. At regional level, he held the European super-middleweight title from 2008 to 2009 and the light-heavyweight version in 2017.
Boxing career
Early professional career
Murat made his professional debut in
Hessen,
Germany on 23 September 2006 defeating Matus Sestak. Three more fights during his debut year resulted in three more wins including a victory in
Austria on 18 November. A very busy 2007 saw Murat fight another eleven times again winning on each occasion and travelling to
Russia,
Spain,
Austria and
Switzerland and well as fighting a number of times in
Germany. Of his victories during the year, of particular note were wins over Jermain MacKay on 18 August 2007 at the Max-Schmeling-Halle in
Berlin and Emiliano Cayetano at the Seidensticker Halle in
Bielefeld on 29 December 2007. Both fighters had boasted only one defeat so far in their careers with Mackay and Cayetano both former Caribbean champions.
European super middleweight champion
On 16 February 2008, in his first fight of the year, Murat defeated Sergey Kharchenko at the Nuremberg Arena to lift the EBU-EE super middleweight title via stoppage in the 10th round. In his next fight, Murat travelled to
Neubrandenburg to fight for the full European belt against
Cristian Sanavia on 12 April 2008, winning with a 12-round unanimous decision. A first defence in
Bielefeld on 20 September 2008 resulted in a majority points win over
Spain Gabriel Campillo before meeting Sanavia again on 28 February 2009. The re-match again in
Neubrandenburg saw Murat once again come out on top, this time stopping Sanavia in the 10th round and registering a second successful defence of the title.
Light heavyweight
Having achieved success at super middleweight, Murat moved up to light heavyweight and fought
Serhiy Demchenko to win the vacant WBO light heavyweight title via unanimous decision on 29 August 2009 in Halle.
His first defence against
Guyana Sean Corbin resulted in a second round stoppage win on 30 January 2010. Murat successfully defended his title once more on 1 May 2010 beating
Tommy Karpency over 12 rounds, knocking him down in the second, in Oldenburg, Germany.
On 18 September 2010 Murat faced
Nathan Cleverly in a WBO light heavyweight title eliminator, losing for the first time in his career by a tenth-round TKO.
The bout was waved off by the referee as the 10th round was about to commence, following a doctor's inspection in the corner between rounds. There were no bruises or blood on Karo's face and he was instantly furious at the referee's poor decision. He rebounded from the defeat on 12 February 2011 with an eight-round points win over Christian Cruz
and followed this on 7 May 2011 winning the IBF version of the Inter-continental title against American boxer
Otis Griffin with an 11th round stoppage.
He made his first defence of the title in a rematch against Spaniard
Gabriel Campillo on 1 October 2011 in a fight which was also billed as an IBF title eliminator with the fighters earning a draw, the first of Murat's career.
Murat then faced the IBF light heavyweight champion
Bernard Hopkins on 26 October 2013 in Atlantic City, and lost by unanimous decision.
[ On 1 July 2017, Murat upset the previously undefeated Dominic Bösel (24–0) with an eleventh round TKO and won the vacantEBU light heavyweight title.]
Professional boxing record
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| 37 | Loss | | Sven Fornling | UD | 12 | 15 Dec 2018 | | |
| 36 | Win | 32–3–1 | Travis Reeves | TKO | 12 (12), | 24 Mar 2018 | | |
| 35 | Win | 31–3–1 | Dominic Boesel | TKO | 11 (12), | 1 Jul 2017 | | |
| 34 | Win | 30–3–1 | Yevgeni Makhteienko | TKO | 12 (12), | 17 Sep 2016 | | . |
| 33 | Win | 29–3–1 | Esteban Hillman Tababary | TKO | 1 (10), | 4 Jun 2016 | | |
| 32 | Win | 28–3–1 | Aleksandar Todorovic | PTS | 6 | 13 Feb 2016 | | |
| 31 | Loss | 27–3–1 | Sullivan Barrera | KO | 5 (12), | 12 Dec 2015 | | |
| 30 | Win | 27–2–1 | Benjamin Simon | TKO | 7 (12), | 25 Apr 2015 | | |
| 29 | Win | 26–2–1 | Leo Tchoula | TKO | 4 (10), | 31 Oct 2014 | | |
| 28 | Loss | 25–2–1 | Bernard Hopkins | UD | 12 | 26 Oct 2013 | | |
| 27 | Win | 25–1–1 | Sandro Siproshvili | TKO | 7 (8), | 2 Jun 2012 | | |
| 26 | Draw | 24–1–1 | Gabriel Campillo | SD | 12 | 1 Oct 2011 | | |
| 25 | Win | 24–1 | Otis Griffin | TKO | 11 (12), | 7 May 2011 | | |
| 24 | Win | 23–1 | Christian Cruz | UD | 8 | 12 Feb 2011 | | |
| 23 | Loss | 22–1 | Nathan Cleverly | TKO | 9 (12), | 18 Sep 2010 | | |
| 22 | Win | 22–0 | Tommy Karpency | UD | 12 | 1 May 2010 | | |
| 21 | Win | 21–0 | Shawn Corbin | TKO | 2 (12), | 30 Jan 2010 | | |
| 20 | Win | 20–0 | Serhiy Demchenko | UD | 12 | 29 Aug 2009 | | |
| 19 | Win | 19–0 | Cristian Sanavia | TKO | 10 (12), | 28 Feb 2009 | | |
| 18 | Win | 18–0 | Gabriel Campillo | MD | 12 | 20 Sep 2008 | | |
| 17 | Win | 17–0 | Cristian Sanavia | UD | 12 | 12 Apr 2008 | | |
| 16 | Win | 16–0 | Sergey Kharchenko | TKO | 10 (12), | 16 Feb 2008 | | |
| 15 | Win | 15–0 | Emiliano Cayetano | TKO | 7 (8), | 29 Dec 2007 | | |
| 14 | Win | 14–0 | Gabor Balogh | TKO | 1 (8) | 24 Nov 2007 | | |
| 13 | Win | 13–0 | Szabolcs Rimovszky | KO | 2 (8), | 15 Sep 2007 | | |
| 12 | Win | 12–0 | Jermain Mackey | UD | 8 | 18 Aug 2007 | | |
| 11 | Win | 11–0 | Sergey Botnikov | KO | 4 (4), | 30 Jun 2007 | | |
| 10 | Win | 10–0 | Mustapha Stini | RTD | 2 (6), | 26 May 2007 | | |
| 9 | Win | 9–0 | Nicolas Perillo | UD | 6 | 8 May 2007 | | |
| 8 | Win | 8–0 | Sergey Gribkov | UD | 6 | 24 Mar 2007 | | |
| 7 | Win | 7–0 | Pavels Lotahs | UD | 6 | 3 Mar 2007 | | |
| 6 | Win | 6–0 | Mirko Sinovcic | TKO | 1 (6) | 17 Feb 2007 | | |
| 5 | Win | 5–0 | Yves Romainville | KO | 1 (6), | 20 Jan 2007 | | |
| 4 | Win | 4–0 | Biagio Patera | UD | 4 | 16 Dec 2006 | | |
| 3 | Win | 3–0 | Petr Rykala | TKO | 1 (4) | 18 Nov 2006 | | |
| 2 | Win | 2–0 | Tanju Guenes | KO | 1 (4), | 4 Nov 2006 | | |
| 1 | Win | 1–0 | Matus Sestak | KO | 1 (4), | 23 Sep 2006 | | |
External links
