NOT content material with terrorizing fringe contenders at each super-bantamweight and featherweight, Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete will this Saturday (February 4) try and proceed his path of destruction up at super-featherweight, the place he’ll meet Australia’s Liam Wilson for the vacant WBO title in Glendale, Arizona.
Navarrete, after all, is not any stranger to title fights, nor to the WBO. As that organisation’s belt-holder at super-bantamweight and likewise featherweight it was all the time seemingly he would in the future seamlessly discover his solution to a title shot in a 3rd weight class earlier than his profession was over.
His featherweight belt, which Navarrete gained in 2020 when outpointing Ruben Villa over 12 rounds, was one he defended 3 times, the final of which was a sixth-round stoppage of Eduardo Baez in August. His super-bantamweight belt, in the meantime, was one the 28-year-old picked up when outpointing Isaac Dogboe again in 2018. From there, he beat Dogboe in a rematch, stopping him within the twelfth and ultimate spherical, after which went on to efficiently defend the belt in opposition to Francisco De Vaca (TKO 3), Juan Miguel Elorde (TKO 4), Francisco Horta (TKO 4), and Jeo Santisima (TKO 11), all of which served to focus on Navarrete was one of many greatest punchers within the sport.
It’s true, he didn’t seem fairly so harmful as a featherweight, going 12 rounds with Villa and likewise Joet Gonzalez, in addition to being prolonged into the twelfth spherical by Christopher Diaz (at which level Navarette closed the present), however that would have as a lot to do with the higher degree of competitors at 9 stone as Navarrete’s energy not being as impactful.
Likelihood is, on Saturday we’ll discover out by some means. We are going to learn how laborious Navarrete hits as a super-featherweight and we’ll discover out whether or not Liam Wilson is each powerful sufficient to take it and ok to supply a menace of his personal.
Up to now, the 26-year-old from Queensland is 11-1 (7) as a professional with few indicators on this 12-fight document that counsel he’ll be capable of cease Navarrete’s march. Nonetheless, final 12 months was clearly an excellent one for Wilson, seeing because it was the 12 months during which he not solely beat Matias Carlos Adrian Rueda over 10 rounds but additionally Joe Noynay (TKO 2), who had stopped Wilson within the fifth around the earlier 12 months.
Now, with a career-best win and a little bit of revenge below his belt, there’s arguably no higher time for Wilson to check his abilities in opposition to the so-called elite. But, even so, it’s nonetheless Navarrete, 36-1 (30), one should again to win this combat on Saturday, most likely by stoppage within the center rounds, by which level he could have presumably made a 3rd weight class concern his sudden presence.