Middleweight champion Ryota Murata will defend his title against Emanuele Felice Blandamura on April 15 at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan, according to Dan Rafael of espn.com.
“I’ll devote all of myself to the first defense and concentrate on this fight,” Murata said, not wanting to get too far ahead of himself.
“Today is the happiest day of my life. I’m happy to fight Murata for the world championship,” Blandamura said.
If Murata comes through he would defend his title against fellow Olympian Esquiva Falcao.
“If all goes well with their upcoming fights we’ve discussed a July date between the Olympians, probably in Las Vegas,” Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN. “Murata against Falcao is a fight with great international flavor. There are a lot of Japanese in Brazil and both fighters are known in each other’s country, but we want to do it here (in the United States) because we want to build Murata and Falcao in the United States. The winner of that fight comes out pretty big.”
