Arum Pleased with Murata's Progress, Aims To Get Him Saunders

By Steve Kim

Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum was in Hong Kong this past weekend where Top Rank put on a card featuring Ryota Murata and Rex Tso, which is part of their Asian program that was once centered around Macao and brought the likes of Manny Pacquiao to face Chris Algieri, along with other significant title fights.

"Well, hopefully we'll get Macao back in action,"the veteran promoter told BoxingScene.com.

"But meanwhile we're doing shows all over China, big shows in Beijing and now Hong Kong as another big venue. There's tremendous support for boxing in Hong Kong."

As for bringing back bigger cards to this part of the world, he stated - "We would hope so but that depends a lot on the financial recovery of Macao." As the local government has cracked down on corruption, it has led to a decline in business for casinos.

On Saturday, Murata - a 2012 Olympic gold medalist for Japan - improved to 10-0 (7 KO's) by halting Felipe Santos Pedroso in four rounds at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. Now Murata will be coming Stateside for his next outing.

Arum hopes to eventually put him in position for a shot at current WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders of the UK.

"He's going to fight July 23rd in Las Vegas against 'the Commanche Kid' (George Tahdooahnippah) and then  he'll fight in Japan at the end of the year and then we expect that we'll move him to world title against Billy Joe Saunders," said Arum.

The fight in the summer will be part of the Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol undercard at the MGM Grand.

Arum says of Murata's progress - "He's come along really nice."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.