By Matt Lieberman: DAZN has announced the 160-lb unification fight between IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin and WBA ‘Super World’ champion Ryota Murata for December 29th at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
For Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KOs), an impressive stoppage win over the 2012 Olympic gold medalist Murata (16-2, 13 KOs) could put himself in the driver’s seat to face Canelo Alvarez in early next year in a trilogy match on DAZN.
Golovkin probably needs a knockout of Murata to punch his ticket for a third fight with Canelo next year. In other words, it won’t be enough for GGG to win a close 12 round decision.
What would be poisonous for Golovkin is beat Murata by a controversial decision, as we saw in GGG’s victory over Sergiy ‘The Technician’ Derevyanchenko in 2019.
That was the last time Golovkin, 39, fought a good opponent, and he looked worse than terrible in that fight. In Golovkin’s previous fight, he looked better in stopping his IBF mandatory Kamil Szerremeta in the seventh round in December of last year. Still, the Polish fighter looked like a second-tier fighter and not a true upper-level contender.
Big Drama in Japan 🍿⁰⁰GGG & Murata put their middleweight world titles on the line, Wednesday, December 29 on DAZN 👑⁰⁰#GGGMurata pic.twitter.com/UNr0QsCLrI
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) November 12, 2021
Golovkin is coming off a long 12-month layoff, and there’s no telling what kind of performance we’ll see from him.
You can’t look at his fight against the overmatched Szeremeta as an indicator of how he’ll do against the heavy-handed and highly talented Murata because that fighter didn’t belong competing for a world title.
We saw just how limited Szeremeta was as a fighter in watching him get taken apart by Jaime Munguia in six rounds last June. Murata is world’s better than Szeremeta and possibly superior to Derevyanchenko in the power department.
You can assume that Murata and his training team will have studied Golovkin’s fights against Derevyanchenko and Canelo, noting that he has problems when being hit to the body.
Moreover, Golovkin couldn’t fight backing up in his contests with Canelo and Derevyanchenko, and that’s an area Murata will be looking to exploit.
If Golovkin loses to Murata, that would effectively finish his dreams of getting a third fight with Canelo. There would be no way the Mexican start would entertain the idea of acing him again.
It would be in the best interest of DAZN that Golovkin finish out his contract with them by fighting the best opposition he can because he’s been aiming low since signing a lucrative contract with the streaming giant in 2019.
In Golvokin’s three fights with DAZN, he’s fought these guys:
- Steve Rolls
- Sergiy Derevyanchenko
- Kamil Szeremeta
Golovkin would have made DAZN happy if he’d fought this murderer’s row instead:
- David Benavidez
- Demetrius Andrade
- Jermall Charlo
- Canelo Alvarez
The fight that Golovkin should have taken at 160 to win another world title would have been against WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade.
For the U.S boxing fans, they would have appreciated Golovkin showing courage by facing the unbeaten Andrade rather than Murata, who has already been beaten by Hassim N’Dam and Rob Brant.
However, the money that Golovkin is going to be getting by fighting Murata in Japan was too much for him to resist, particularly with him getting older and struggling for wins.
Many boxing fans now have a perception of Golovkin that he’s just looking for money fights and not concerned with taking risks by fighting talented opposition.
You can argue it was a bad mistake on Golovkin’s part to waste his first three fights on his DAZN contract by facing Rolls, Derevyanchenko and Szeremeta. If Golovkin wanted to make DAZN happy for giving him a huge contract, he should have aimed higher by taking on Charlo, Andrade, or Benavidez.