By: Shane Willoughby
For boxing historians, the fight between Murata and Brant really rolled back the years. All the way back to arguably the greatest Middleweight fight of all time. Hagler vs Hearns.
Like the Hagler vs Hearns classic, both fighters came out banging and you got the feeling from the first 1 minute that this fight wasn’t going to go the distance.
Now that pace isn’t something unusual for Brant, who, in his last bout threw over 100 punches in 9 rounds out of the 12 rounds, but Murata this time attempted to keep up with the pace.
Now whilst he never through 100 punches like Brant, he did throw 69 punches, and landed 29 power shots. Forget feeling each other out for the 1st round, this was round 13.
It was going to be very interesting to see how the fight was going to go and it was extremely difficult to score the first round. As they both landed good punches.
However, it was clear the American was surprised with how Murata came out. It’s rare for any fighter to try and keep up the pace with Brant’s work rate but Murata definitely tried.
Whilst, the champion was out working the Japanese fighter, Murata was landing some good power punches and one thing he has other Brant is power.
Whoever thought they would come out in the 2nd much more conservative was wrong. They came out even faster. If that is even possible.
But Brant made the schoolboy error and started to plant his feet. With someone with Murata’s power that can be detrimental.
Which it was, because it saw the end of his night. Murata hit Brant with a punishing blow stopping Brant in the 2nd round.
Murata regained his WBA Middleweight title and has sent a real message to division. This fight was a fantastic advert for the sport and the thousands of Japanese fans in attendance was definitely entertained.
The other fight on the card was between Ken Shiro and Jonathan Taconing.
At first glance you would probably think, a fight between two light Flyweights can’t be very explosive. Both Shiro and Taconing combined weight is significantly less than Deontay Wilder
.
But Shiro the WBC champion of the division doesn’t punch like a normal 108 lbs fighter and he proved that with a devastating ending to the fight in the 4th round.
Taconing came out very reckless with wild swings, probably knowing that the chances of outboxing the champion were slim to none.
Despite his large efforts, Shiro is much too good to be getting hit by the poorly placed punches he was throwing and he really started pick him off.
His jab and straight right hand was landing continuously, keeping the Philippian fighter at range.
Although he was getting hit far too easily, it didn’t stop him from charging in and it was only a matter of time before he got hit with something concussive.
Taconing recklessness was pretty pathetic, and despite the fact that it caused a cut on the top of his head from a head clash in round 3, he kept flying headfirst like a kamikaze pilot.
Taconing’s suicide mission finally came to an inevitable end. The next round he jumped into a beautiful timed straight right hand which sent him falling to the canvas.
Taconing returned to his feet but was in no state to continue. Ken Shiro has now made a 6th defence of his WBC belt and should be looking to move up to what is a fairly interesting Flyweight division.