By Chris Williams: WBC/WBO super featherweight champion Shakur Stevenson and Emmanuel Navarrete are in negotiations for a fight this summer in August or September on ESPN.
The news of the Stevenson vs. Navarrete fight is being reported by ESPN Knockoff.
This would be the unbeaten Shakur’s first fight since his one-sided 12-round unanimous decision over WBC champion Oscar Valdez on April 30th.
If Stevenson (18-0, 9 KOs) will stick around the 130-lb division for a bit longer, fighting Navarrete is the most marketable fight for him.
It’s not worth it for Shakur and his promoters at Top Rank to bother pouring energy/time into becoming the undisputed champion at super featherweight by defeating IBF champion Joe Cordina and WBA champ Roger Gutierrez.
Those guys aren’t household names in the United States, and the only people that would care about seeing Stevenson fight either of those little-known belt holders are the ultra-hardcore boxing fans.
Regular hardcore fans would prefer to see Stevenson move up to 135 so that he could take on undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney, WBA ‘regular’ belt holder Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, Vasyl Lomachenko, or the social media star Ryan Garcia.
There’s a lot more money for Shakur to make at 135 than staying at 130, spinning his wheels fighting obscure paper champions that U.S fans have never heard of.
Navarrete (35-1, 19 KOs) is coming off a dominating performance in defeating #1 WBO contender Joet Gonzalez by a 12-round unanimous decision last October on ESPN in San Diego, California.
Navarrete broke Joet’s right orbital bone in the second round in that fight with a bone-crunching right hand. From that point on, Gonzalez fought bravely through the pain, getting hit repeatedly by Navarrete for the next ten rounds.
Gonzalez showed a lot of toughness to stick it out until the bitter end without quitting in his corner, which he probably should have done because he had no chance of scoring a knockout against the superior Navarrete.
Stevenson won’t have an easy time against Navarrete because he’s more of an offensive dynamo than Oscar Valdez and the other guys he’s fought in the pro ranks.
Of the fighters that 2016 Olympic silver medalist Stevenson has fought thus far in his five-year professional career, Navarrete presents the most risk for him due to his high work rate, power, and aggressive style.
Navarrete has captured world titles at super bantamweight and featherweight. He first gained notoriety in 2018, coming out of nowhere to defeat WBO 122-lb champion Isaac Dogboe by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision.
To show that his win wasn’t a fluke, Navarrete came back five months later and stopped Dogboe in the 12th-round in their rematch in May 2019.
Navarrete then successfully defended his WBO super bantamweight title four additional times before moving up to featherweight to capture the WBO belt with a 12-round unanimous decision against the highly technical Ruben Villa in October 2020.
