Gennadiy Golovkin vs Ryota Murata Preview
Live and exclusive on DAZN and from the land of the Rising Sun at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan, the IBF and WBA Middleweight titles are up for grabs between the future hall of famer Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and the 2012 Olympic Gold medallist Ryota Murata.
With the lack of big fights in the Middleweight division, seeing Demetrius Andrade vacate his WBO title to chase bigger fights and Jermall Charlo turning down $7million to fight Andrade but taking on his left overs in his upcoming fight, it is good to see a unified match up going down.
With the importance and spotlight on Undisputed, Golovkin himself hasn’t helped the Middleweight scene, putting his own career on hold at this late stage with over one year of inactivity when he could have fought fellow DAZN fighters Andrade or Munguia but opted to wait for the perceived weakest of the 4 champions and has landed the rematch that he has desired against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez so will feel justified in his decision.
A highly successful amateur with 7 major gold medals and an Olympic silver medal, Golovkin spent many years being heavily avoided by the major names at Middleweight. Picking up the WBA regular middleweight title back in December 2010 and making a total of 21 middleweight title defences and still has an 87% KO percentage from his wins.
The controversy surrounding Golovkin's draw and loss to Canelo still haunts him and many hardcore GGG fans. I am very much in the camp of Golovkin winning both fights, especially the first fight. If Golovkin is successful here and goes onto get the Canelo rematch, I will unfortunately see Golovkin suffering a legitimate loss to the pound for pound king.
Ryota Murata is taking a massive step up in his career with his best victories coming over Rob Brandt or Hassan N’dam N’Jikam. Murata racked up over 130 amateur fights and is now going into his 19th fight as a pro! Murata is a man who likes his home comforts, fighting outside of Japan once and being a very popular figure which could play a big part in this fight’s outcome.
Murata himself has a controversial defeat on his record with the first fight over N’dam which led to 2 judges being suspended and the WBA president issuing a public apology and ordering an immediate rematch. Murata righted the mistakes that had been made and bullied and beat up N’dam in the rematch, inflicting his first knockout loss.
How do we see this one playing out...
Let's look at the physical differences between these two men. Golovkin is older and more experienced, fighting against a higher calibre opponent. He also has the experience of travelling to the home favourite's backyard. Although with his advancing years, he will still look to apply pressure and break down Murata, who showed in his defeat to Rob Brant he can have issues with this style. Golovkin still hits hard and will still be capable of taking out the Japanese man.
Murata’s key to winning this is not going to be his usual knockout power — a man who carries an 81% KO percentage from his victories as Golovkin has never been on the canvas in his whole career. Amateur and Pro consisted of 393 fights, so I can’t make any case to sponsor a Murata K.O win. He does have the 5 inch reach advantage and will look to call on his amateur pedigree and keep Golovkin at bay as much as possible with a solid jab and movement.
I don’t see this being a massively one sided fight but I expect Gennady Golovkin to come out victorious and actually feel the fight will go the distance — with all the controversial and down right awful judging decisions that we have seen this year (Cough Taylor Catterall!) I wouldn’t be surprised to see the home fighter get a hometown decision if this one goes the distance. If common sense at the officials tables takes place then I can see a Golovkin points win 8-4/9-3 in hopefully an action packed fight and some good undercard action!
Ian Mathias
Comments
Post a Comment