Raymond Muratalla might feel a little jilted that his lightweight title defense was taken away from his hometown arena and set as a co-main event promoted by someone else.
But proving the point that you never know who’s watching, something major may be waiting for Muratalla in the near future.
On Monday’s episode of ProBoxTV’s BoxingScene Today, analyst and Muratalla trainer Robert Garcia told of how unbeaten four-division champion and recently signed Zuffa Boxing addition Shakur Stevenson entered Garcia’s Southern California gym earlier this year and said he wanted to fight Muratalla.
“Shakur came to my gym and told me, ‘I do want that fight,’” Garcia said on the show.
In January, one week before he defeated two-division champion Teofimo Lopez to become WBO 140lbs champion, Stevenson attended Muratalla’s gritty majority decision victory over 2021 Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz of Cuba at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.
He obviously came away impressed.
Muratalla, 24-0 (17 KOs), was originally targeted for an August 8 homecoming fight in Ontario, California – the neighboring city to his hometown of Fontana, California – when his promoter Top Rank instead shifted him to the August 1 card headlined by the WBC lightweight title fight between Lamont Roach Jnr and William Zepeda.
Muratalla meets Brazil’s former Olympic and junior lightweight world champion Robson Conceicao.
TNT and DAZN will broadcast the card in the second edition of “The Fight.”
“Let’s try to push for the biggest fights out there for Raymond Muratalla because… Muratalla’s a great fighter. The kid already showed it against Andy Cruz,” Garcia said. “There’s no holding back… let’s go after anybody. If it’s [Gervonta] Tank [Davis], if it’s Shakur…”
