Emanuel Navarrete retained his WBO Junior Lightweight Title with an eighth-round technical decision win against Charly Suarez.
The fight was stopped in the eighth after an accidental headbutt. Navarrete won’t mind, as he followed up his win over Oscar Valdez the last time out. Navarrete started the fight on the front foot, landing on Suarez’s nose in the opener. It was the straight right hand that bloodied the nose. Suarez regained his composure in rounds three and four, as he tried to close the gap on the inside to work his left hand.
However, a turning point happened in round six. An apparent clash of heads resulted in a cut over Navarrete’s left eye. The blood was pouring, as Suarez took advantage by landing more right hands. Navarette went to his corner, as they did well to contain the cut. However, before the start of the eighth round, the referee Edward Collantes ended the fight. The referee deemed the cut was due to the clash fo heads. The bout then went to the scorecards, as Navarrete got the decision: 76-75, 77-76, and 77-76.
“I felt good. I felt strong. I felt complete. Unfortunately, what happened with the headbutt, obviously [the fight] ended like that. But while we were fighting, I felt good. From the first moment of the impact, I knew it was a headbutt. It split my eyebrow completely, and from the first moment I noticed it was a headbutt. First we’re going to recover the cut that we have in the eyebrow. We just need to adjust a few things, but obviously we’re going to first take things calmly, make a decision, and see if we want to stay at 130 or try again at 135 pounds,” Navarrete said
Full Card
Emanuel Navarrete (c) beat Charly Suarez via technical decision for the WBO super featherweight title (78-75, 77-76, 77-76)
Raymond Muratalla beat Zaur Abdullaev via unanimous decision for the interim IBF lightweight title (118-110, 119-109, 119-109)
Andres Cortes beat Salvador Jimenez via unanimous decision (100-90, 100-90, 99-91)
Giovani Santillan beat Angel Beltran via unanimous decision (97-93, 97-93, 97-93)
Perla Bazaldua beat Mona Ward via unanimous decision (40-36, 40-36, 40-36)
Alan Garcia beat Cristian Medina Garcia via unanimous decision (79-73, 79-73, 79-73)
Sebastian Hernandez beat Azat Hovhannisyan via unanimous decision (98-91, 98-91, 98-91)
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