WBA “Regular” middleweight champion Ryota Murata, WBC flyweight champion Daigo Higa and WBC light flyweight champion Ken Shiro will all defend their respective world championship on April 15 in Yokohama, Japan.
Murata will face current EBU middleweight champion Emanuele Felice Blandamura for the WBA title, Higa will face Cristofer Rosales and Shiro will face Ganigan Lopez in a rematch from their title fight last May that saw Higa win the WBC title by majority decision.
Below is a tweet by Higa confirming the bout against Rosales.
Murata is coming off the title win against Hassan N'Dam in a rematch from their controversial first fight which saw N'Dam first win the title. If Murata defeats Blandamura, Murata becomes the first Japanese boxer in history to successfully defend a middleweight world title. Higa is coming off a knockout win over Moises Fuentes on February 15. The knockout was Higa's 15th in a row, which ties the record for a Japanese boxer held by Tsuyoshi Hamada and Akibee Ushiwakamaru, and extends Higa’s Japanese record for most consecutive knockouts to start a pro career.
Shiro won the WBC title from Lopez last year when Murata and Higa also competed on the same card in world title fights. Shiro previously defeated Lopez by majority decision and has defended his title successfully twice and the WBC recently ordered Shiro to fight Lopez.
This event would be the biggest boxing show in Japan since the December 30 and 31 boxing cards that saw Naoya Inoue defend his WBO super flyweight title and Ryoichi Taguchi unify the WBA and IBF light flyweight titles in the main event of the December 30 and 31 shows, respectively.
