Golovkin-Murata middleweight unification fight rescheduled for April 9 in Japan

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The middleweight title unification fight between Gennadiy Golovkin and Ryota Murata was rescheduled on Wednesday.

It will take place on April 9 (DAZN) at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, which is just outside of Murata’s hometown of Tokyo, Teiken Promotions and GGG Promotions announced. The fight was originally scheduled for Dec. 29 at the same arena, but it postponed in early December because of the surge of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

“I am glad that the date has finally been set,” Golovkin said in announcing the fight. “I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers from Japan for their hard work and full support of the upcoming unification fight. Ryota Murata is an outstanding champion. I believe that boxing fans from this beautiful country and around the world will see an exciting event. I look forward to getting back in the ring and bringing the ‘Big Drama Show’ to Japan.”

Two-time middleweight titlist Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KOs), who turns 40 the day before the fight, will be making his second defense of the IBF title. He won the vacant 160-pound belt by disputed decision against Sergiy Derevyanchenko in brutal slugfest in October 2019.

GGG made his fist defense 14 months later by one-sided seventh-round knockout of mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta, whom he knocked down four times, in December 2020 and has not fought since.

If GGG wins and rival Canelo Alvarez wins his May 7 fight against light heavyweight titlist Dmitry Bivol, the plan is for undisputed super middleweight champion Alvarez to return to the 168-pound division and for Golovkin to move up in weight for their long-awaited trilogy fight. Alvarez leads their series 1-0-1 with both fights ending in with controversial decisions.

During his first dominating eight-year title reign, GGG unified the WBA, IBF and WBC belts and tied Bernard Hopkins for the all-time middleweight division record with 20 consecutive defenses before losing the belts by controversial majority decision to Alvarez in September 2018 in a rematch of their even more disputed split draw in September 2017 that most saw Golovkin winning.

Two-time WBA titlist Murata (16-2, 13 KOs), 36, who became a Japanese national hero when he won a 2012 Olympic gold medal, regained the belt by second-round knockout of Rob Brant in their July 2019 rematch. Murata defended the belt by fifth-round knockout of Steven Butler in December 2019 and has not fought since.

“It is an honor to share the ring with the great champion Gennadiy Golovkin,” Murata said. “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.”

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