By Scott Gilfoid: WBA World super flyweight champion Kal Yafai (22-0, 14 KOs) won a tougher than predicted 12 round unanimous decision victory over #10 WBA Suguru Muranaka (25-3-1, 8 KOs) on Saturday night at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, England. The judges scored the fight 118-108, 119-107, and 119-107. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 10-1-1 in favor of Yafai due to his high number of power shots landed.
Yafai knocked down the 31-year-old Muranaka in round 2. It looked more like Muranaka had slipped moments before he was hit. It didn’t matter though. Muranaka didn’t do nearly enough to win the round. Yafai was docked a point in round 8 due to a low blow. Yafai had been warned by referee Steve Gray earlier in the fight stop throwing low blows.
Muranaka was putting tons of constant pressure on Yafai throughout the fight. Despite Muranaka not having much in terms of power, he was able to wear Yafai down with his pressure and body shots. Yafai looked uncomfortable in the second half of the fight due to the heavy pace. Yafai twice spit out his mouth piece in the 6th.
In the previous round, Muranaka had hurt Yafai with a left to the body that seemed to suck the energy out of him. It wasn’t surprising that Yafai lost his mouthpiece twice in round 6. Surprisingly the referee didn’t take a point off from Yafai for twice losing his mouthpiece in the 6th, because it looked to be like it was intentionally done by Yafai in order to buy soe time after being hurt.
“My hands were in a bad way after 2 rounds,” said Yafai after the fight. “I did what I had to do to win.”
Muranaka was landing a lot of shots to the head and body of Yafai. While the punches weren’t heavy looking, they were strong enough to put Yafai in a nervous state to where he was looking really anxious and ired.
“It was a great learning fight,” said Yafai’s promoter Eddie Hearn. “One more defense and he’ll chase the unification fights.”
Sam Eggington vs. Ceferino Rodriguez – Official results
Sam Eggington (21-3, 13 KOs) was too much for EBU welterweight champion Ceferino Rodriguez (24-2, 12 KOs) in stopping him with a thunderous left hook to the head in the 10th round to capture the EBU 147 pound title at the on the undercard of the Kal Yafai vs. Suguru Muranaka card. Eggington flattened the exhausted looking Rodriguez with a left hook to the head that knocked the Spaniard through the ropes outside of the ring.
The medical staff immediately moved in and started working on the badly hurt Rodriguez. After a while, Rodriguez was able to get back to his feet and leave the arena. Rodriguez’s right eye was swollen up, and he had a bloody nose. Eggington’s eyes were swollen from the hard punches from Rodriguez. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:03 of round 10.
Boxing News 24 had Eggington ahead 7 rounds to 2 at the time of the fight was halted. Rodriguez wore down from the high work rate from Eggington. That was basically the reason Rodriguez lost. It wasn’t because Eggington was hitting with a lot of power. His engine was too good, and Rodriguez couldn’t fend off all the nonstop punches from Eggington.
Overall, it was a good fight even though the match was dominated by Eggington for the most part.
Eggington controlled rounds 1 through 4 with his volume punching. Eggington caught Rodriguez with some tasty right hands in rounds 3 and 4. Rodriguez looked beleaguered, and pretty much overmatched at that time. The 28-year-old Rodriguez was trying to answer back with his own power shots, but he couldn’t keep up with the high amount of shots that Eggington was constantly hitting him with. Rodriguez was trying, but he couldn’t throw as many as Eggington.
In round 5, Rodriguez came on strong in landing some nice right hand power shots while backed against the ropes. Eggington was getting sloppy by throwing punches without focusing on his own defense. Rodriguez took advantage of that by nailing Eggington with some big shots to the head that got his attention. Luckily for Eggington, Rodriguez lacked the power on his punches to put him in trouble because if he did, he would have likely knocked him out.
Round 6 was a close one with both guys trading leather in the center of the ring and against the ropes. It looked like Rodriguez did slightly better than Eggington. The round was close enough to go either way.
Eggington came out on fire in the 7th round and just worked a tired looking Rodriguez over, puffing up his right eye and bloodying his nose. There was a point where Eggington had Rodriguez looking hurt against the ropes. The referee watched the action closely and looked like he wanted to step in and halt the fight at one point. Rodriguez was able to land just enough shots to keep the referee from stopping the contest.
Rodriguez fought well in round 8. However, Eggington came on strong in the last 15 seconds to steal the round with a flurry of big power shots to the head. Rodriguez’s body language looked bad at the end of the round. He was both tired and hurt as he walked back to his corner.
Round 9 was close with both fighters landing some nice shots. Eggington looked like the fresher fighter of the two, and that was the main difference.
“It was a messy fight,” said Eggington after the bout ended. “He’s not the biggest puncher.”
Eggington is an impressive puncher with the way he never stops throwing shots. He reminds me of Aaron Pryor the way he never stops throwing. Pryor was a hard puncher. Eggington doesn’t have major league power for the welterweight division. That’s the main difference. Eggington will need to find some punching power because he’s not going to beat the good welterweights by throwing 1000 punches. He’s going to get hurt if he fights someone with power. I can only imagine what Errol Spence Jr. would do to Eggington.
“He’ll have a defense in September. I want Danny Garcia after that,” said Eggington’s promoter Barry Hearn in targeting former two division world champion Danny Garcia for Egggington.
I would be very surprised if Danny Garcia bothered to give Eggington a fight. It would be a huge step down for Garcia to take that fight. I think Eggington is a fun fighter to watch, but he has NO defensive skills to speak of, and he would have a lot of problems with Danny Garcia’s power. It would be a mismatch in my opinion. Garcia has power in both hands and he would be looking to take Eggington’s head off. We saw Garcia rally and almost beat Keith Thurman in his last fight. I can understand why Hearn would want to match Eggington against Garcia.
The fight would undoubtedly bring in a large crowd if he could lure Garcia over to the UK. The only way I could see Garcia coming over to the UK to fight Eggington is if Hearn offered a lot of good cash for the fight. It would likely take a lot of money to get Garcia to come to the UK though to fight in front of a huge crowd of British boxing fans.
Frankie Gavin vs. Renald Garrido – Results
Former 147 pound world title challenger Frankie Gavin (24-3, 14 KOs) kept his sagging boxing career alive tonight with an 8 round points decision win over journeyman Renald Garrido (18-15-1, 3 KOs). It was a closer fight than it should have been, but this is unfortunately where Gavin is at this point in his career. Gavin was given the victory by the narrow score of 77-75. This should have been an easy win for Gavin, but it wasn’t due to his lack of punching power.
