Ryota Murata vs. Bruno Sandoval – Results

BoxingNews24.com

By Jim Dower: Undefeated #3 WBO middleweight contender Ryota Murata (12-0, 9 KOs) made short work of an over-matched Bruno Sandoval (19-2-1, 15 KOs), stopping him in round 3 on Friday night at the Ariake Colosseum, in Tokyo, Japan.

Murata, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist from Japan, dropped Sandoval with a beautiful chopping right hand to the head in the 3rd round. The badly hurt Sandoval attempted to get back to his feet on three occasions, but fell down each time.

The referee Yuji Fukuchi tried to help Sandoval to his feet, but he still collapsed. After all that, the referee still took the time to give Sandoval a 10 count. The referee probably should have stopped the fight outright given how hurt Sandoval was. It was clear that Sandoval was not going to be able to get back up and continue fighting.

The 25-year-old Sandoval was able to give Murata very little resistance in the fight due to his lack of punching power. This was an example of Murata’s management choosing an opponent that was tailor-made for him to beat, because he didn’t need to worry about getting hurt by the Mexican fighter due to his weak shots throughout the fight.

In round 1, Murata telegraphed his right hands in throwing them from a long ways away to the head of Sandoval. #3 WBA, #3 WBO, #4 IBF, #5 WBC Murata had a habit of measuring Sandoval with his left hand holding way out in front of him to gauge the distance before throwing his fights to the head or body.

Normally this kind of tactic doesn’t work against better fighters, because as soon as a fighter tries that technique, they get nailed to the head. Sandoval didn’t have the training in how to take advantage of the flaws in Murata’s style, and believe me, there were a lot of flaws there. The round was one-sided with very little return fire from Sandoval.

In the 2nd round, Murata landed a number of huge right hands to the head of Sandoval. The 6’0” Murata backed Sandoval up against the ropes late in the fight and was chopping down at him again and again. The shorts were landing because of Sandoval’s nonexistent defense. In the entire round, Sandoval maybe landed 10 punches. The remainder of the round saw Murata hitting him with a lot of heavy shots.

By the end of the round, it was clear that the fight wasn’t going to go much longer, considering that Sandoval wasn’t throwing enough shots to keep Murata honest. Murata wasn’t even bothering to try and defend himself in any real way by the 2nd round, because he knew Sandoval had nothing to hurt him with. It was great match-making by Murata’s promoters to find someone with no power to showcase his skills against, but the fight didn’t prove that Murata will be able to compete with the better fighters in the division like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

In round 3, Murata backed Sandoval up against the ropes and hurt him with a right hand to the head. Murata then followed up with another huge right hand that dropped Sandoval on the canvas. The rest was history. Sandoval tried to get up on three separate occasions and each time, he couldn’t do it. The referee actually picked Sandoval up the first time, and he fell back down.

Murata tried to steady Sandoval on the third occasion after he made it to his feet, but he still fell back down. What was interesting was how Murata was celebrating pretty much the entire time that Sandoval was trying to get up. The fight wasn’t even over offic