By Sean Jones: WBA World middleweight champion Ryonta Murata (13-1, 10 KOs) is being talked about making a defense of his WBA title against #10 WBA fringe contender Emanuele Blandamura (27-2, 5 KOs) next, according to Fight News.
This would be the 32-year-old Murata’s first defense of his World Boxing Association160 lb. title that he captured last October in beating Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam by a 7th round stoppage in their rematch in Japan.
The WBA is supposed to be in the process of reducing the amount of champions they have in each weight class, but apparently they still haven’t gotten to the middleweight division yet. The WBA has 2 champions at 160 in Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin, who is called the WBA ‘Super World’ middleweight champion, and Murata, who is referred to as the WBA ‘World middleweight champion.
The WBA could make things easy if they simply ordered Golovkin and Murata to face each other so they could eliminate one of the unnecessary champions 160. It looks silly for the WBA to have 2 champions at 160, especially when one of them is arguably nowhere near the same level as Golovkin. Murata looks like a decent fighter. but he’s nowhere near as talented as Golovkin.
The 38-year-old Blandamura of Italy has previous knockout losses to Michel Soro and Billy Joe Saunders in 2014 and 2015. Both fighters stopped the light hitting Blandamura in the 8th round. It’s unknown why the WBA has ranked Blandamura in their top 10 with their organization, because he’s not beaten anyone remotely good enough for him to be rated in the top 10 or even the top 25. It’s another one of the odd rankings being given the WBA. It’s an organization that has 2 champions ins some weight classes, and it’ strange.
Here are Blandamura’s recent wins:
• Alessandro Goddi
• Goran Milenkovic (12-10)
• Mugerel Sebe (18-79-4. No, this isn’t a typo. Sebe has 79 losses on his record. Blandamura beat him by an 8 round decision, and the WBA subsequently ranked him No.10 with their organization
Blandamura won the vacant WBA EBU middleweight 2 years ago in beating Matteo Sinani (23-4-3) by a 12 round split decision in December 2016. Blandamura defeated it once in beating Goddi by a close 12 round unanimous decision last June. Blandamura then vacated his EBU 160 lb. title for some reason.
2012 Olympic gold medalist Murata, who is promoted by Top Rank in the U.S., lost a controversial 12 round split decision to N’Dam in their first fight in May 2017. Murata was able to get a rematch with N’Dam 5 months later on October 22, 2017 to defeat him by a 7th round knockout to capture the WBA ‘regular’ middleweight belt.