Nearly one year after Rob Brant scored the biggest win of his career and dethroned Ryota Murata to become the WBA "Regular" middleweight champion, the two fighters are set to do battle once more.
Top Rank announced that Brant will travel to Murata's home country of Japan for their title rematch, set for July 12. The fight will take place at the Edion Arena in Osaka and those living in the United States will be able to watch the fight live on an ESPN platform, but the specific broadcast deals will be revealed at a later date.
In their first fight, which took place in Las Vegas last October on a fight card streamed on ESPN+, Brant had a near record-breaking performance against Murata, throwing 1,262 punches which is the second-most recorded by CompuBox in a middleweight title fight in history by one fighter. Brant would go on to win the fight by unanimous decision, winning with wide scores of 119-109, 119-109 and 118-110.
Since winning the title, Brant has only made one defense, an 11th round stoppage win over Khasan Baysangurov back in February. That fight headlined a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card from Kinckley, Minnesota.
Murata, who is a boxing superstar in Japan, is the only boxer in the country's history to successfully defend a version of the middleweight world title when he did so in April 2018, scoring a TKO victory over Emanuele Blandamura. Murata, a former Olympic gold medalist, won the title in 2017 when he defeated Hassan N'Dam in a rematch from their controversial first fight that N'Dam won months prior.