The card will originate from Yafai’s hometown of Birmingham, England. AWE’s live coverage begins at 3 pm ET.
Yafai will step into the ring with a perfect record of 21-0 with 14 knockouts. The 27 year-old is a five year professional, and comes from a fighting family. Yafai’s brother, Gamal, is an undefeated super bantamweight, and is also on the May 13th card.
Yafai won the WBA Super Flyweight crown with a 12-round unanimous decision over Luis Concepcion on December 10th in Manchester, England.
Yafai earned his way to a title shot with wins over Jozsef Ajtai (15-3), Dixon Flores (12-3-2), Jason Cunningham (17-2), Cristofer Rosales (10-1), Yaqub Kaleem (13-3-1) and Scott Gladwin (5-1).
“It’s a tough first defense and that’s what I need,” said Yafai. “I want hard fights that are going to help me when I face unification fights.”
“This is what I started boxing for. I wanted massive nights in Birmingham and it doesn’t get better for me. It’s been amazing since winning the title. Every time I’m walking around the city I get stopped for photos and for autographs, but I know that it’s harder to keep a title than it is to win it, so the real work is only just beginning.”Muranaka of Tokyo, Japan has a record of 25-2-1 with eight knockouts, and is undefeated in his last 19 fights, which spans 11 years.
Muranaka is coming off a eight-round majority decision over Hiroyuki Hisataka on December 5, 2016 in Tokyo.
The 31 year-old Muranaka has signature wins over Renoel Pael (19-3-1), Tetsuma Hiyasji (25-2-2), Masayuki Kuroda (21-4-3), Takuya Kogawa (22-2), Tamoya Tateyama (8-1-1) and Toyoto Shiraishi (6-0-1).
This will be Muranka’s first bout outside of Japan. The full undercard will be announced shortly.