By Dan Ambrose: Emanuel Navarrete (38-1, 31 KOs) says he’s willing to fight Shakur Stevenson next if that’s what his team & promoter want for him after his one-sided twelve round unanimous decision victory over Oscar Valdez (31-2, 23 KOs) last Saturday night at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
Emanuel beat the smaller Valdez by the scores 119-109, 118-110, and 116-112. Valdez was too small to do much with the huge-looking Navarrete, who looked like a junior middleweight tonight. How in the world did a fighter as big as Navarrete make 130? Better yet, how was he able to make 122 & 126?
It would have been interesting to weigh Navarrete before he climbed into the ring because he looked massive, and Valdez appeared three divisions smaller than him.
Navarrete says he’s not afraid of Shakur. Of course, it’s easy for him to say this, considering that Stevenson has moved up to 135. There would likely be a lot of studdering if Navarrete had Shakur standing before him when he said he had no fear of him.
If he were still fighting at 130, Navarrete would likely be whistling a different tune by putting it on his promoter or his team to take the blame for him ducking Shakur.
What’s hilarious is that’s exactly what Navarrete did when interviewed after the fight, saying it’s up to his team & pomoter.
Ultimately, it could come down to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum if he wants to let Navarrete fight Shakur next. Given that Arum wants to keep Navarrete winning to take advantage of his sizeable built-in fanbase in the U.S.
Putting Navarrete in with someone that could beat him, like Stevenson or Vasily Lomachenko, would ruin things. Navarrarte will never become a big star in the U.S. if Arum feeds him to Loma, Shakur, or Robeisy Ramirez. He’s not good enough to beat those guys, even with a massive size advantage.
“I’m going to rest and think about that in one or two weeks,” said Emanuel Navarrete to the media when asked who he wants to fight next following his win over Oscar Valdez tonight.
“It’s evident that he was hurt in this fight. In the Shakur fight, he wasn’t that hurt. You don’t have to be intelligent to notice that. So if I was to take that fight, I would have to adjust my technique to fight him, but I’m not scared.
“I wouldn’t turn away from that fight,” said Navarrete when asked if he would be willing to fight Shakur Stevenson. “It’s something that I would have to think about and talk to my promoter and my team and see if Shakur intends on fighting someone like me as well.
“Valdez just kept coming forward, and he didn’t really care about his swollen eye, and that speak well of him. I appreciate that because that allowed us to give the kind of fight that we wanted to give,” said Navarrete when asked if the fight should have been stopped due to Valdez’s swollen right eye.
