By Ryan Burton

LAS VEGAS - Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum has put on his share of exciting fights over the years and believes he will have another one Saturday night when Ryota Murata (14-1) defends his WBA middleweight title against Rob Brant (23-1) at The Park Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas strip.

Murata captured Olympic Gold in 2012 and Arum believes that his fighter (who he co-promotes with Teiken Promotions) is just coming into his own as a fighter.

"I think it is a great fight. Brant is an extremely good fighter, very capable. Murata obviously was a star winning the Olympic gold medal but he had some flaws early on like most guys going from amateur to professional but he has came on like a house on fire and he is a really good fighter. If he can get by Brant, which is going to be a tough task, then I think he will look to even take it a step further and fight a guy like Golovkin,"  Arum explained.

Last week Arum was in Omaha, Nebraska where WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford knocked out Jose Benavidez in the 12th round of what is the highest rated fight in the United States in 2018.

He said that both fighters can be expected to return to the ring in the spring.

"I think we are talking about March or April for Terence to come back and as far as Benavidez is concerned about the same time. I think Terence looked great and so did Benavidez," said Arum who was confident that Benavidez would put on a great performance even though he was a very big underdog.

"We weren't surprised about Benavidez. He has fought for Top Rank since he has been 17 so we knew about him. He had a big setback when he got shot in the knee but we knew what a talent he was."

As far as the rating that peaked at over 2.7 million viewers, Arum gave a lot of credit to ESPN for the way they built up the fight.

"ESPN did a great job publicizing the fight and that is the advantage that we have with ESPN which for example DAZN doesn't. ESPN is a sports network and people who want to watch sports and sports commentary go to ESPN and therefore it is the best megaphone in sports so if you have an ESPN talking up a Terence Crawford or any fight you are going to get a good audience,"  Arum stated.

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