The Japanese native Ryota Murata assured that this Saturday will be just the beginning of the brightest part of his career, because after successfully defended the regular middleweight title of the World Boxing Association against the American Rob Brant at the Park Theater in Las Vegas, there is an expected fight with the Kazakh native Gennady Golovkin that could arrive in 2019.

“I’m honored to be here in Las Vegas. I want to show everyone a great fight. Brant is a great fighter, and beating him would mean a lot to my career,” said Murata (14-1, 11 KOs), who will make the second exhibition of the title. “I’m happy to be stellar, but there’s more to come. I think there are bigger and better fights for me. This is just a beginning,” he predicted.

In his future, promoter Bob Arum sees a fight with Gennady Golovkin, which promoters Akihiko Honda and Tom Loeffler have already talked about. “Everything will happen after the outcome of this fight, so I’m not thinking about the future. I’m looking forward to victory on Saturday. It would be good if that fight happened. It would be special because it would be good for boxing. I think it would be a war. I think it would be a really exciting fight,” he said.

For Brant (23-1, 16 KOs) the fight with Murata is all or nothing. “We know that Murata will be the challenge of a lifetime because he is an Olympic gold medalist, in addition to being a world champion,” he said. “I have worked very hard for this opportunity. It is a dream come true to fight for a world title, and be in the mecca of boxing, Las Vegas. There is nothing better than this,” he said.