Former secondary middleweight titleholder Ryota Murata says he’s going to fight on, though he’s not sure if he’ll do so at 160 or move up to 168 pounds following a shockingly one-sided loss to Rob Brant on Oct. 20.
From ESPN:
“When the fight was over, I once thought I would retire from boxing. Then my determination was 98 percent sure. I won’t make the Brant bout my last performance. I’d like to climb up to the ring with the world belt on the line again.”
Murata (14-2, 11 KO) is a star in Japan and won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics, and at age 32 figures to have good years left in the ring. The fight with Brant was a genuinely stunning outcome — not even so much that Brant won, but that he dominated the fight.
So it’s not clear what Murata will be doing next, but he did decline the option of an immediate rematch with Brant (24-1, 16 KO), who is expected to return to action in February on ESPN after signing a co-promotional deal with Top Rank.
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