Boxing Challenge: Brant stuns Murata!

Source: STEVE MARCUS/Getty Images North America

In a five-fight boxing challenge weekend, the best fight and biggest news occurred in Las Vegas where Top Rank's best-laid plans burned in ashes as Rob Brant upset Ryota Murata to take his minor title via a clear and unanimous decision, that still was an exciting fight to watch.

The Brant victory blew up a planned Murata "title" defense in Japan at the Tokyo Dome early in 2019 against Gennady Golovkin that would have been a major event there with sizable checks for all involved.
Brant ruined that with a relentless attack that saw an Aaron Pryoresque offense that just never stopped throwing punches at the taller Japanese import.
No knockdowns were scored, but Brant's punches beat up Murata around both eyes and around his cheekbones causing some impressive swelling.
I scored Brant a 117-111 winner, which was along the line of the three judges.
Murata does have a rematch clause, so should he choose to activate it, Brant might have to travel to Japan for it, but against the best competition that he has faced at middleweight (his only loss was to Jurgen Braehmer at super middle in the WBSS), Brant looked like someone that is going to be a tough out even for the best in the division, should he fight at this level every time out.

Meanwhile, DAZN featured a pair of cards from Boston and Orlando that you could pick the one you want to watch live and watch the other on replay.
This is always a hard strategy to navigate when you are trying to avoid knowing results (especially if you are friends with Fred Landucci! Just teasing, buddy) and fight facts beforehand.

Photo: Matchroom Boxing

From Boston, Demetrius Andrade grabbed one of the two vacant middleweight titles with his shutout win over Walter Kautondokwa to win the WBO version.
Andrade joins Canelo Alvarez (WBA/WBC) and the winner of the Daniel Jacobs-Sergey Dereyvanchenko fight next Saturday (IBF) and suddenly there could be a way to unify the titles if the desire is there with all of those fighters having connections with DAZN, Matchroom Boxing or both.
Andrade won every round on my scorecard (120-104) with the wider margin explained by Andrade dropping Kautondokwa in the first, third and twice in the fourth.
Andrade wasn't as safety-first as he had been in the past, but he never seemed to truly turn the jets on and try to put the Namibian away.

In the other Boston challenge bout, IBF junior lightweight champion Tevin Farmer dominated James Tennyson of Great Britain thru four rounds and finished him in the fifth.
Farmer dumped Tennyson to the canvas with a fourth-round body shot that essentially finished him then, even though an ailing Tennyson came out for the fifth, but was quickly staggered with another body blow that was enough to convince the referee that the fight should be concluded.
The rare knockout (just the sixth among twenty-seven wins) for Farmer might say more for Tennyson's lack of an ability to take a good punch (he once was knocked out by a guy with a 2-64-5 record) than any newfound punching ability of Farmer, who has been involved in a social media shouting match with WBA champ Gervonta Davis with both calling the other out for a unification battle.
I don't mind fighters calling the other out- IF there is a chance of making the fight, which I think this one has little chance of happening with Davis, who sadly rarely fights, being involved with Floyd Mayweather's Money Team/PBC and Farmer with Matchroom/DAZN.
There just isn't enough money to be made from this fight to be worth the sides to work together to get this one in the ring.
If the fight would be made, I like Davis in that one.

Meanwhile, in Orlando, the World Boxing Super Series filled semi-final slots in the bantamweight and cruiserweight tournaments.

Yunier Dorticos went the entire twelve rounds for the first time in his career and won a narrow unanimous decision over a tougher than expected Mateusz Masternak to move to the semi-finals.
No knockdowns, but the story was Masternak giving the booming punches of Dorticos and his vaunted power all that he wanted before just falling short on my card 115-113.
Dorticos will move on against American Andrew Tabiti in the semi-finals in early 2019.

Talented Emmanuel Rodriguez also was given all that he wanted by the mandatory contender Australia's Jason Moloney, but moved to the semi's and retained his IBF bantamweight title with a split decision victory.
All three judges scored the fight the same at 115-113, with two selecting Rodriguez and the other picking Moloney as the victor.
I agreed with the majority leaning the way of Rodriguez by the same score.
Rodriguez will face the Monster Naoya Inoue in the next round and though Inoue will be a heavy favorite, Rodriguez will be a live underdog in my opinion against the Japanese sensation.

In the boxing challenge, I scored five points to Ramon Malpica's four.
Ramon and I scored one point each for wins by Dorticos, Farmer, Rodriguez and Andrade, but my extra point came from predicting Andrade would go the distance.
I lead the challenge 172-147.