Gennady Golovkin stops Ryota Murata to unify middleweight titles and throw down Canelo Alvarez challenge

Gennady Golovkin did his part to set up a potential mammoth trilogy fight against Canelo Alvarez by knocking out Ryota Murata in Japan.

‘GGG’ - who turned 40 on Friday - bounced back from an uncertain and uncomfortable start to Saturday’s main event at Saitama Super Arena, with his trademark power not diminished as he eventually took control of an otherwise competitive fight from the fifth round onwards and forced an emphatic stoppage with a huge right hand in the ninth.

A 42nd professional victory and 37th stoppage saw Golovkin add the WBA ‘super’ middleweight title to his IBF and IBO belts, as well as laying down an impressive marker to arch-rival Canelo.

Provided the Mexican overcomes WBA light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol in Las Vegas next month, the two great rivals will get the chance to close out one of modern boxing’s biggest and most enduring rivalries later in 2022.

On Saturday’s undercard, Junto Nakatani provided the successful second defence of his WBO flyweight world title with a dominant destruction of compatriot Ryota Yamauchi, inflicting heavy punishment during a fantastic performance before earning a fully deserved eighth-round stoppage.

There was also an enthralling bloody battle between former WBO super-featherweight world champion Masayuki Ito and Shuichiro Yoshino, with the latter retaining his WBO Asia Pacific and OPBF lightweight titles on points after a nasty clash of heads forced the bout to be waved off in the penultimate round.

Proceedings opened with a win for Taiga Kato over Hiroka Amaki, while Kazuki Anaguchi was also victorious over Ryuji Yamamoto.

More to follow

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