Gennady Golovkin added Ryota Murata’s WBA ‘super’ middleweight title to his IBF crown, as he overcame a spirited early effort from his opponent before scoring a ninth round stoppage win at the Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
The contest had been a long time in the making, with delays due to the pandemic largely causing postponements. Golovkin’s last appearance in the ring had come in December 2020, where he forced a seventh round retirement of Kamil Szeremeta, while Murata hadn’t boxed since a year previous to ‘GGG’, where he stopped Stephen Butler in five.
The Kazakh who turned 40-years-old the day before the fight, began well off his jab, but Murata (16-3, 13 KOs) gave as good as he got fighting with aggression and moving forwards to meet Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) in the opener.
’Triple G’ went through the gears in round two, with shots to both body and head, and the third was close quarters stuff, with the home fighter having his moments in the exchanges, and he hurt the favourite to the body.
The pair took turns to dish out punishment in what was fast becoming an attritional affair, with the fifth seeing Golovkin putting more weight on his punches, and enjoying success as a result, with a big left hand finding the target.
He was also pushing the 36-year-old back by round six, which was his most dominant session to date. The weighty blows were taking their toll on the Japanese, and he was sending out distress signals in round seven, trying his utmost to stay out of trouble, and round eight was just as dominant for Golovkin.
GGG stops Murata in the 9th 💥#GGGMurata pic.twitter.com/5WpaRf3sOd
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) April 9, 2022
With Murata tiring, ‘GGG’ kept up the workrate with more spiteful shots, and although Murata bravely fought back, a sweet right hand to the head scrambled his senses, and the towel came in just as he hit the canvas from a follow up left, and the fight was waved off.
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Golovkin will hope the win moves him towards a trilogy fight with his old rival, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, providing the Mexican great defats WBA light heavyweight champion, Dmitry Bivol on May 7.
Nakatani retains WBO belt
The chief support came at flyweight, where WBO champion Junto Nakatani pretty much dominated from start to finish, as he stopped Ryota Yamauchi (8-2, 7 KOs) in the ninth round of their meeting.
Nakatani finishes Yamauchi in STYLE ✨
The WBO champ moves to (23-0, 18 KO)#GGGMurata pic.twitter.com/BL8CWSBlRZ
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) April 9, 2022
Nakatani (23-0, 18 KOs) constantly landed with spiteful shots, and broke his vastly less experienced opponent down until the ending, where an accumulation of slashing punches forced the referee to signal an end to matters.
Ito defeated by Yoshuino
Former WBO super featherweight world champion, Masayuki Ito was looking to get back into title contention, but he found Shuichiro Yoshino too fresh, and eventually lost on the cards via technical decision, with the lightweight twelve rounder stopped in round eleven due to a nasty cut above Ito’s eye.
Shuichino Yoshino gets the decision after a great fight with Masyauki Ito. The clash of heads in the 11th round sent us to the scorecards early.#GGGMurata pic.twitter.com/zcP6ImOUrP
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) April 9, 2022
Ito (27-4-1, 15 KOs) was hurt down the stretch, and especially to the body, and the contest was stopped on the advice of the doctor, with Yoshino (15-0, 11 KOs) taking the win by two scores of 107-102 and a third at 106-103.
Remaining Undercard
Kazuki Anaguchi moved to 2-0 (2 KOs) with the Hyogo-based super bantamweight stopping Ryuji Yamamoto (6-2, 6 KOs) in three rounds.
Taiga Kato (1-0) got the better of the battle of the debutants at welterweight, as he took a four round decision win against Hiroka Amaki (0-1).
Identical scores of 39-36 were returned by the three judges.
