DAZN’s great appetite for subscribers may net Ryota Murata a big fight against either Gennadiy Golovkin or Canelo Alvarez in 2020.
According to a Yahoo! Japan report, DAZN is pushing for a matchup that pits one of their flagship fighters against the Japanese middleweight star because of stalled subscriber growth in its U.S. market.
The report’s sources also say that DAZN did not have the surge that they expected in Alvarez’s last fight in November, against Sergey Kovalev.
All of which makes both Golovkin and Alvarez realistic possibilities next year for the 33-year-old Murata, perhaps the most active high-profile professional boxer in Japan.
DAZN, which has exclusive rights to Golovkin and Alvarez, also has a relationship with Murata. The 2012 Olympic gold medalist fought for DAZN Japan one time, an upset loss to Rob Brant last year.
Murata is coming off a fifth-round technical knockout of Steven Butler last week. The victory capped a marked turnaround for Murata, who began the year by avenging his loss to Brandt. Afterward, his promoters – Teiken’s Akihiko Honda and Top Rank’s Bob Arum – both expressed their desire to see Murata fight either Golovkin or Alvarez in 2020, ideally before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Yahoo! Japan also reported that Golden Boy executive Roberto Diaz said Murata is definitely on the table for Alvarez. And Canelo said during the DAZN streaming of the Andy Ruiz-Anthony Joshua rematch in Saudi Arabia that he would consider fighting in Japan.
Should the fight happen, it would most likely take place at 168. An Alvarez-Murata fight at the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome could rival a fight between Alvarez and either Billy Joe Saunders or Callum Smith in England.