Saturday in Yokohama, Japan, Ryota Murata retained his minor belt with a dominant victory over Emanuele Blandamura with an eighth round stoppage.
I thought Murata won every round over an overmatched opponent and did what he should have.
Murata is expected to fight Brazil's Esquiva Falcao next in a rematch of their Olympic final and a victory could have him against Gennady Golovin in the following bout.
I still want to see what Murata looks like against a top ten fighter and despite the talent of Falcao, he has less on his record than Murata, who at least has a somewhat shopworn Hassan N'Dam on his resume, so I assume I might be wondering after his next fight as well.
In the co-feature, I was very impressed as Cristofer Rosales stopped Daigo Higa in the ninth round to win the WBC flyweight title.
Higa had lost the title on the scales by not making weight, but Rosales could win the title with a victory, while a Higa win would have resulted in the title becoming vacant.
In an excellent fight, Rosales surprisingly held off Higa's attacks and slowly broke the smaller (in height) Higa down before Higa's corner threw in the towel in the ninth round.
A few points here- kudos to the corner of Higa (led by Hall of Famer Yoko Gushiken) for stopping the bout, saving Higa from more of a beating and perhaps keeping his viability around for another day.
Rosales was very impressive and style-wise resembled his countryman Roman Gonzalez in his win.
I think the one-time dream fight discussed before Gonzalez's two losses to Sristket Sor Rungvisai between Gonzalez and Naoya Inoue, would have ended and been fought just as this one was.
Rosales has a loss to Andrew Selby of England and now I really want to see that fight as Rosales looked so strong in this one that I want to see what Selby brings to the table.
In the boxing challenge-Ramon Malpica and I each earned two points for the Murata win to move the total to 61-48.
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