Golovkin vs Murata Preview
A dynamic title fight is taking place Saturday April 9th in Saitama, Japan as IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin will face WBA “super” middleweight champion Ryoto Murata in a an important unification bout.
Golovkin won the vacant IBF title in 2019 with his unanimous decision victory over Sergiy Derevyanchenko and he has since defended the belt one time against Kamil Szeremeta. The fighter once considered the best pound for pound boxer in the world is a two-time champion having previous held the unified WBA Super, WBC, IBF and IBO titles between 2014 and 2018.
Golovkin’s only blemishes on his record are a split draw and majority loss both controversially to Canelo Alvarez. Aside from those fights, he has looked invincible in the middleweight division. The 39-year-old has key victories over Daniel Jacobs, Kell Brook, David Lemieux, Willie Monroe Jr, Martin Murray, Marco Antonio Rubio and Daniel Geale.
Most people in the boxing world want to see a third fight between Golovkin and Alvarez, but Golovkin is focused on Murata.
“He has not had a chance to face a fighter of my level or to see the boxing that I’m going to demonstrate,” Golovkin said. “At the same time, I don’t want to diminish his wins. I don’t want to say anything bad about the guys over whom he prevailed. And the fact that in his rematches, he avenged both losses, it says a lot,” said Golovkin.
The Kazakhstani went on to say, “he said that a fight against me would be the pinnacle of his career. He trained for this fight very seriously. And we also know each other personally. We even sparred at some point during the training camp, some time ago. So I’m ready for this.”
Murata won the WBA regular middleweight title with a 2nd round TKO of Rob Brant in July of 2019 in Osaka. He defended the belt in December of 2019 against Steven Butler and won by a 5th round TKO. He was promoted to WBA “super” middleweight champion after the title was vacated by Canelo Alvarez. Murata is still looking for a marquee win to add to his resume and Golovkin would certainly represent that type of victory.
Murata is humbled by the opportunity to face Golovkin but is not shying away from displaying his confidence. “It is an honor to share the ring with the great champion Gennadiy Golovkin,” said the 36-year-old.”
The Japanese fighter went on to comfortably say, “I am extremely pleased to be part of this historic middleweight title unification fight here in Japan. On April 9th, victory will be mine and Japan will have a unified world middleweight champion.”
The main card can be seen on DAZN.
