By Scott Gilfoid: WBA World super flyweight champion Kal Yafai (21-0, 14 KOs) successfully weighed in at 114 ¼ pounds on Friday at his official weigh-in for his title defense against #10 WBA fringe contender Suguru Muranaka (25-2-1, 8 KOs) for their fight this Saturday night at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, UK.
The 31-year-old Muranaka also weighed in at 114 ¼ pounds. Yafai looked a lot taller than 5’4” Muranaka despite both guys listed as 5’4”. Looking at the two, I think Yafai is at least 2 inches taller than the Japanese fighter. I guess it doesn’t matter. This is not supposed to be a competitive fight. Muranaka was picked from way, way down in the World Boxing Association rankings for his title shot. What’s weird is that Yafai has been squawking about wanting to fight Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, but then he turns around and chooses to fight a fringe contender in Muranaka.
I don’t understand that move. If Yafai believes he can beat Roman Gonzalez, then what in the heck is he doing fighting a small, old guy like Muranaka. It boggles the mind to try and understand fighters like Yafai and his promoter Eddie Hearn. If they couldn’t get Roman Gonzalez, then how about #1 WBA Sho Ishida, Juan Francisco Estrada, Ricardo Rodriguez, Rex Tso or Naoya Inoue? Were those guys all busy or what? Yafai is doing a lot of talking, but he’s not backing it up by facing the talents in the division.
“I’m ready to go on now and show other things in my arsenal and show that I’m the real deal,” said Yafai to skysports.com. “He’s going to have to bring something very special to the table to beat me tomorrow night. He’s very aggressive, will look to put me under a lot of pressure.”
Big deal, Yafai is predicting a knockout over a guy that has little to no chance of beating him in Muranaka. I’m really impressed. To show you how much of a mismatch the Yafai- Muranaka is, Muranaka is even ranked below Yafai’s last opponent Luis Conception, who he TOTALLY dominated in beating by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 120-108, 117-110 an 119-108.
By the way, Boxing News 24 didn’t agree with those scores. We had it a little closer. Conception won at least 4 rounds. Yeah, it was a mismatch, but it wasn’t a mismatch by the scores of the three judges. Yafai won that fight on size alone. When Yafai entered the ring, I just knew new Conception had NO chance at all, because he was so much smaller. Yafai looked like a welterweight inside the ring on the night.
Conception looked no different from the fighter that weighed in at 117 lbs. on the scale. But, Yafai looked huge. I don’t know how Yafai makes the 115 pound limit for the division, because he looks like a 147 lb. welterweight when he’s out there fighting. I’m not talking about a rehydrated welterweight. I’m talking about a welterweight on the scales. Yafai is huge for the super flyweight division. I think that’s the major reason for his success thus far.
“But my job will be just to break him down, take each round by round. I’ve got a feeling tomorrow night I’ll do some damage,” said Yafai.
Muranaka hasn’t lost a fight in 11 years since 2006 when he was beaten by Tamoya Kaneshiro by a 6 round decision. Muranaka hasn’t fought any talented fighters in the last 11 years. You can argue that the only reason Muranaka hasn’t been beaten is because he’s been fighing pretty much nothing but obscure opposition. That’s probably the major reason why Muranaka isn’t rated higher.
If the guy had fought some quality opposition, he’d be ranked a lot higher than No.10 with the WBA. Of course, if Muranaka fought some of the good contenders, he likely would have lost numerous times. That brings me back to my main point. Why in the world is Yafai defending his WBA title against Muranaka? Yafai is yapping about wanting to fight Roman Gonzalez, but then fighting a bottom fringe contender in Muranaka.
For the past 2 weeks, Yafai and his promoters have been making a lot of noise about this fight. Muranaka isn’t the type of contender that you would get worked up about. He’s a fringe contender. Where’s the gain in Yafai beating Muranaka? I do not understand.
In other weights on the card, Sam Eggington (20-3, 12 KOs) weighed in at 146 ½ pounds for his fight on Saturday against EBU welterweight champion Ceferino Rodriguez (24-1, 12 KOs). or his part, Rodriguez, who comes from Spain, weighed in at 145 ½ pounds. Rodriguez kind of overdid it in the weight department in coming in so low, but I guess this is normal for him. He stays in shape. Rodriguez is coming off of a close 12 round split decision win over Ahmed El Mousaoui last December. The only loss on Rodriguez’s resume came against Mohamed Mimoune in 2015 in losing an 8 round unanimous decision.
Eggington beat former 2 division world champion Paulie Malignaggi by an 8 round knockout last March. However, Eggington was hurt before the knockout and the only reason he won the fight was because Malignaggi didn’t pounce on him. It was a fight very similar to the Wladimir Klitschko vs. Anthony Joshua fight. Like with Klitschko having Joshua ready to be knocked out in the 6th, Malignaggi had Eggington ready to be knocked out, but he let him off the hook and Eggington came back and knocked him out in the 8th.
For Eggington, this fight against Rodriguez might be as good as it gets for him. This is pretty much Eggington’s Super Bowl, because he lacks the pop in his punches for him to progress to the world stage to compete with the likes of Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia. Eggington is more of an European level fighter in my view. I don’t see him having the needed ingredients to rise up to take on a world champion. That doesn’t mean Eggington won’t get a shot at a world title. Look at Martin Murray and George Groves. Those two guys keep getting world title shot after world title shot without ever beating anyone good. If those guys can get world title fights, then Eggington can too.
