Boxing Preview, March 9th: Golovkin vs Murata, Ryan Garcia and more.
Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images
After a light week last week, we begin a fantastic spring schedule of boxing with a weekend absolutely rammed with names and interesting fights. With aging legends, rising stars, and solidly even matchups with title relevance, it’s a date peppered with interest, so let’s get into it.
Golovkin vs Murata
The most prominent fight of the week may also be the saddest, as an aging and inactive Gennady Golovkin steps in with an aging and inactive Ryota Murata in Japan. We know what Golovkin will bring - great pressure behind the jab, but tempered from his pre-Canlo days into something more measured, a little less relentless, to the frustration of his former coach Abel Sanchez- but we simply can’t know for sure what level he’ll be able to do that at, at 40 years old and 16 months since his last bout. Against any other top fighter in the division this would be really concerning, but since the 36-year-old Murata hasn’t fought in nearly twice that long, he may not prove any fresher, and his style was never particularly well-suited to closing on someone like Golovkin. His combination punching once in place is solid, but he tends to follow and reach with his punches rather than cutting the ring, so even if he does get Golovkin to go on the back foot, he’ll likely struggle to reach him, especially since he defends mostly with a high guard that is just extremely open up the middle, which would leave him very suspect to that jab. And if they engage head-to-head, Murata’s defence in general just isn’t good enough to win those exchanges unless Golovkin really has completely fallen off a cliff.
There may be more joy on the undercard. First up is Shuichiro Yoshino vs Masayuki Ito at lightweight. Yoshino is 30 years old and has had an odd kind of career - pro since 2015, but never put in the heavy kind of early-career schedule that most fighters do so in those seven years he’s fought 14 fights. He’s never fought for a world title, or outside of Japan, but he’s picked his leisurely way into the rankings of several of the sanctioning bodies, and will be hoping his prominent place on this card will get him the push to be in contention for some of those. Ito on the other hand has been around the block - only a year older than Yoshino, but with twice as many fights, he has held a world title, having won the WBO 130lb strap against Christopher Diaz back in 2018 (a title he defended once and then lost to Jamal Herring before moving up in weight). Since then he’s gone 2-1, losing Hironori Mishiro in between two wins, all at ten rounds- making this his first 12 rounder at the weight.
Stylistically, Yoshino looks to be a counter-puncher for preference (full disclosure, he’s not an easy fighter to find footage of right now, but I’ve seen his win over Genki Maeda and his one-round knockout of Harmonito De La Torre)- he can lead, but he prefers to draw his opponent onto the front foot and counter with either fast flurries to the body, or big shots to the head, and when he does go on the front foot it tends to be with big telegraphed swings. On the back foot, he’s much sharper with those shots, and the body work is particularly a treat to watch and something to watch out for, but he is also very hittable, not bothering too much about what comes during and after he’s thrown his shots.
Ito is the much more technically complete of the two, preferring to come forward at a measured pace behind a solid jab. He does have a tendency to follow rather than cut- that’s what lost him his title belt against Herring, who was able to step around him very easily- but he keeps his feet in shape, the pressure steady, and uses a lot of feints and throwaways especially with the lead, so he should be able to score on Yoshino fairly consistently and possibly draw out counter opportunities himself. Where Yoshino’s chance comes is that Ito’s defence seems to rely almost entirely on his positioning, and he doesn’t make much in the way of defensive response if someone beats him to the punch. It’s hard to say who’ll win, though I’m leaning Ito for his experience and more correct form, but it should be something of a firefight.
The last fight to talk about from this bill is Junto Nakatani defending his WBO flyweight title against Ryota Yamauchi. Nakatani is for my money the best fighter in a currently very solid 112 division, so he’ll definitely be favourite, but Yamauchi will be hoping to upset the applecart with his power and bodywork (his knockout of Yuta Nakayama last June is a genuine thing of beauty, a stifling lead-left bodyshot followed in almost the same movement by a hook to the head off the same hand). In truth, he’s got a long shot here- he looks deadly when in close, but even against Nakayama he was reaching somewhat when closing the range, which will make it hard to get past Nakatani’s right hand, one of the most varied and educated leads in the game. We’ll likely see Nakatani control that distance with a sticky jab and plenty of feints and handfighting, then invite Yamauchi in so he can seek to counter with his powerful left. The difference in defence here is also stark - Yamauchi seeming to rely mostly on deterrence as defence whereas Nakatani has the looks of an excellent pocket and clinch technician as well as being great at range - so realistically Nakatani should have this.
Lubin vs Fundora
The other two big cards of the evening come from America. First up, Erickson Lubin takes on Sebastian Fundora for an ‘interim’ WBO belt at 154lbs- which really means it’s a final eliminator for the title currently held by Brian Castano, waiting for his rematch against Jermell Charlo. Either way, it’s a high-stakes game. Lubin, who was essentially fast-tracked into a title shot against Charlo five years ago only to find himself spectacularly knocked out in the first round, has spent the time since busily rebuilding and refocusing to get another crack at the top. Fundora first showed up as kind of a novelty, a six-foot-six super-welterweight whose almost skeletal proportions still stand out, but he’s begun to earn genuine respect as a boxer- awkward, a little rough, but skilled and tough in a way that belies his gangly frame.
Out of the two Lubin is definitely the more skilled, but the question is if he’s skilled in the right areas to overcome his weaknesses- most specifically, even though he’s won every fight since his loss, there’s still question marks about his chin that haven’t been helped by being visibly hurt in both of his last two fights before going on to victory. The problem, simplified, appears to be this: Lubin knows he needs to keep his chin safe, but as a boxer he’s most stylistically suited to being on the front foot, throwing combinations and cutting angles to make space to work. Thus his fights seem to swing between dull stretches of unimaginative range boxing (not always on the back foot, he presses well enough behind a jab, but keeping that distance) and exciting exchanges which Lubin usually wins the majority of but sees him wobble when the opponent does land one.
The range-fighting part may actually not be as difficult for him as it might seem, since despite his length Fundora is very much an inside fighter by trade- but it does come with the problem that an inside fight for Fundora is a mid-range fight for most of his opponents, and Lubin will find shots coming at him from angles he simply won’t have prepared for - so he’ll have to be very, very sharp on his toes and may engage even less than in the fight with Terrel Gausha, which wasn’t great. And if it comes to an inside game, again, Lubin has the bigger set of tools and tricks, but Fundora loves being there, throws shots with power and from awkward angles that are hard to prepare for, and although he’s hittable, hasn’t ever really shown any cracks in his own chin. Lubin’s best chance in these exchanges may be to target the body, but ultimately his best bet will be a less-interesting fight, whereas Fundora will be wanting to push the pace more. Add to the fact that Fundora is equally comfortable leading or countering and this could be a night where Lubin struggles to make his technical proficiency count.
The other big fight on the card is another significant one in the 154lb division, with Sergio Garcia- Fundora’s previous opponent- looking to get back to winning ways against Tony Harrison, who briefly held the WBC world title after an upset win against Charlo, before losing the rematch. Since that loss, in 2019, he’s only had one fight, a draw against Bryant Perrella a year ago, so he may be rusty here. Since Garcia has squeezed five wins and that Fundora loss in since the last time Harrison saw victory in the ring, he’ll be hoping, despite a big experience disadvantage (Harrison has been at or about the world level since fighting Sergey Rabchenko in 2016, whereas Garcia has never really been there) he’s the fresher of the two.
Stylistically, Garcia is the more classically sound of the two, a tidy boxer with a good jab, neat circling movement and a solid though basic high guard defence. He isn’t super-imaginative with his setups or punch selection - which did cost him against Fundora who often saw him coming even if the actual punch wasn’t telegraphed- but he’s smooth and unfussy and quite tricky to both catch up to and dissuade.
Harrison is almost the opposite- not crude or fundamentally unsound, at all, but who can be dissuaded- the stoppage against Charlo in the rematch was early but he had not reacted well to being cornered on the ropes, and he’s prone to going very on the back foot when faced with a sharp counter-, who sometimes almost doesn’t jab at all even though he’s got a good one when he uses it, and who relies on unpredictability and surprise to get his shots home. Thus, an awful lot will defend on his fitness, because any loss of speed will leave him in big trouble. That was already a problem for him in his draw against Bryant Perrella, a fight in which he had his moments but was beaten to the punch far too often for a fighter whose whole gameplan is about beating opponents to the punch. Garcia may or may not be a better fighter than Perrella- it’s difficult to say entirely from their levels faced to date- but he’s younger and, possibly important, a natural 154lber where Perrella was stepping up from welterweight for the first time. If Harrison is at his sharpest, he should have a little too much here, but if not, we could see Garcia honestly just bully him a little bit.
The rest of the card is mostly concerned with prospects, most notably 24-year-old Mexican Kevin Zambrano fighting the aforementioned Perrella himself, presumably with an eye to vault himself into contention of the winner of that fight.
Garcia vs Tagoe
The final card of the weekend is headlined by the return of Ryan Garcia from a year’s layoff, in against the Ghanaian Emmanuel Tagoe, who has actually been even more inactive, following up a long-awaited US debut win in 2020 with a two year layoff. It’ll be worth it if he springs the upset here, though, and possibly even if he doesn’t, since fighters out of Africa often find it difficult to get the promotional push and backing they need to find consistent paths to world titles, and a break like this could be huge.
Anyway, aside from that, because of the long gaps this fight will partly be a question of who’s fresher. Beyond that, Tagoe hasn’t really been brought on because team Garcia think he’s any real danger, so they’ll be expecting a fairly comfortable win. Tagoe doesn’t really think about his feet or chin at all when he’s swinging, so Garcia will hope to detonate his pretty devastating right hand on the chin at some point. The danger will come in that Garcia isn’t a stranger to letting his own feet get square and his chin in the air- but since he does this less often than Tagoe, is longer, faster and more powerful, it’d be a shock if he ended up on the worse of this. It’s not really a fight set to tell us much - more about shaking some rust and getting Garcia back in the spotlight after some time out.
The rest of the card is topped by a unification bout at women’s flyweight, with Marlen Esparza pitting her WBC belt against Naoki Fuijoka’s WBA strap. Beyond that, look out for Gabriel Rosado making a probably last-gasp attempt to keep himself relevant at any kind of world level when facing off against Shane Mosley Jr.