When Japan announced a temporary ban on travel to the country in the wake of the omicron COVID-19 variant, it seemed only a matter of time before the middleweight championship unification bout between Gennadiy Golovkin and Ryoto Murata would be scratched from its planned Dec. 29 date. The postponement was made official on Thursday night and promoters are hoping to reschedule the fight for 2022.
Golovkin confirmed the news, tweeting, "I am deeply disappointed that fight in Japan has been postponed but the health and safety of the public must Watch GGG vs Murata online.
always be the priority. I look forward to returning to the ring against Ryōta as soon as possible."
The postponement means 2021 is officially the first calendar year in which Golovkin has not had a fight since turning professional in 2006. The IBF middleweight champion also fought just once in 2020, defeating Kamil Szeremeta when Szeremeta did not come out of his corner after the seventh round.
Golovkin will turn 40 in 2022 and the clock is likely fast ticking down on any possibility of a third fight with Canelo Alvarez. Alvarez has gone on to unify all four recognized world titles at super middleweight and is planning to move to cruiserweight in an attempt to win a world title at yet another weight. Combined with Golovkin's delayed fight, fans may never see the trilogy come to fruition.
Murata has also seen his career largely stalled out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After fighting twice in 2019, winning the WBA secondary title for the second time in his career and being promoted to full world champion by the sanctioning body, Murata then did not fight in 2020 or 2021.
There is no word on a planned reschedule date for the fight though the intention to hold the fight in Japan means the situation with COVID and travel will have to be monitored until a new date can be safely set.
Saturday was another loaded day of boxing, with major contests taking place in the United States, Dubai and Japan. Those fights included a top prospect in action as well as two championship contests.
The day's capper saw Edgar Berlanga in action against Steve Rolls from Madison Square Garden's Hulu Theater. Berlanga, once a red-hot prospect after scoring 16 first-round knockouts to begin his career, was looking to rebound from a questionable performance in his last outing, where he was knocked down by Marcelo Coceres in a shockingly close bout. Berlanga was also returning from surgery to repair a torn bicep suffered in that bout.
For his third straight outing, Berlanga was unable to finish off an opponent as Rolls was never truly in trouble during the 10 rounds of action. Unfortunately for Rolls, he waited until well into the second half of the fight before he turned up his aggression, having clear success in landing shots on Berlanga but giving up so many early rounds with a cautious approach that there was no victory to be had on the scorecards. Berlanga ultimately won by tallies of 97-93, 97-93 and 96-94. Golovkin vs Murata fight time
Berlanga remained undefeated with the win, but many of the questions that were already out on him since the first-round knockout train stopped rolling will only intensify after a relatively lifeless performance against Rolls, with plodding footwork, holes in his defense and a lack of an offensive attack that sees him fail to use one shot to set up another.
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