By Dan Ambrose: Emanuel Navarrete & Oscar Valdez will be going to war this Saturday night in a twelve round contest that is expected to be a firefight on ESPN on August 12th at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
As Tim Bradley notes, Navarrete (37-1, 31 KOs) looked sloppy earlier this year in capturing the vacant WBO super featherweight title with ninth round knockout of Liam Wilson last February.
Although Navarrete got the win, he was stopped and appeared technically unsound, getting knocked down in the fourth by Wilson, and hammered until the Aussie gassed out after the fifth.
ESPN & ESPN+ will show the Navarrete vs. Valdez event this Saturday at 10:00 p.m. ET.
Valdez has better boxing skills and will be looking to take advantage of the slow, looping shots that the volume puncher Navarrete tends to throw.
The 28-year-old Navarrete has captured world titles in three divisions, but the guys that he fought to capture those belts weren’t elite-level fighters. Navarrete won his three titless against these fighters: Isaac Dogboe, Ruben Villa & Liam Wilson.
Valdez was happy that Navarrete got through his tough-than-expected fight against Liam Wilson last February. Navarrete was down in the fourth, and the only we he could escape being knocked out was to spit his mouthpiece out and then request that it be washed off before being put back in.
Even with the massive delay in the action, Navarrete was on the verge of being stopped in the remainder of the round. That was Navarrete’s first fight at 130, and he showed that he was not the same fighter in this weight class as when he was fighting at 122 & 126.
Without a massive size advantage over his opponents, Navarrete is an average fighter, which is why he could be in serious trouble on Saturday night against Valdez. Hopefully, Navarrete doesn’t resort to spitting his mouthpiece out again if he gets dropped by Valdez becue it might not save him this time.
Some boxing fans believe Navarrete’s reason for vacating his WBO featherweight title was because two-time Olympic gold medalist Robeisy Ramirez was his mandatory, and he saw the writing on the wall if he’d kept his belt to defend against the Cuban talent.
It would have been nice if Navarrete had stayed at 126 long enough to fight Robeisy because that would have been an interesting fight to see compared to the guys he’d fought while holding the WBO belt.
Valdez (31-1, 23 KOs) has fought the far superior opposition than Navarrete, with winds over these fighters:
– Scott Quigg
– Robson Conceição
– Miguel Berchelt
– Shakur Stevenson
– Genesis Servania
– Adam Lopez
The undercard is well-stocked, with lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla fighting Diego Torres Nunez in the chief support bout and 2020 U.S Olympian heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr. battling Willie Jake Jr.
Other undercard action
– Lindolfo Delgado vs. Jair Valtierra
– Sergio Leon Rodriguez vs. Edurdo Ayala
– Antonio Mirelas vs. Dajuan Calloway
– Emiliano Vargas vs. Jorge Luis Marquez Alvarado
– Ricardo Ruvalcaba vs. TBA
“You want to talk about a fight between Emanuel Navarrete and Oscar Valdez. That’ll be an absolute war,” said Joe Tessitore to Top Rank Boxing about this Saturday’s contest on ESPN & ESPN+.
