Emmanuel Navarete defeats the controversial Charlie Suarez

San Diego, CA – Emmanuel Navarete (40-2-1, 32 KO) is back at Pechanga Arena. He fought against a veteran whose experience, durability and determination proved to be challenging. From the opening bell, Charlie Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs) jumped on Navarete.

The round showed a glimpse of what happens to the battle, a round-trip war between two merciless fighters. Navarrete started strong and gave Suarez a bloody nose in the first round. His best round was the early rounds, and then he began to show signs of fatigue in the middle rounds. Suarez said in the postwar press that he felt Navarete’s punches had weakened as the fight progressed.

Navarrete struggled to gain weight and required six attempts to reach a target weight of 130. His weight issues seem to have affected his conditioning. In the sixth round, the fight changed and Navarete suffered a nasty cut in his left eye. The referee ruled it as a headbutt, but the slow-motion replay shows a left punch thrown by Suarez, followed by a slight head collision. The fight continued in the eighth round, and at the start of the round, the Ring’s doctor stopped the fight for a cut. It went to the scorecard as it is dominated by the headbutt. He wins a technical decision victory.

Had the cut been ruled with punches, the fight would have ended with a technical knockout victory. Make Suarez the new WBO Junior Lightweight Champion. The California athletics board will consider the incident. Carl Moretti posted to X after reviewing the replay and deserved a rematch. Suarez expressed interest in getting a rematch with Presser. However, Navarrete did not express his desire to do so. The difficulty of his weight building may be the reason he hesitates to give a decisive yes, as he may have potentially grown his division.

Currently, in the seventh round, Navarrete was able to land 32.5% of his power punch. He covered Suarez and a total punch landed from 98 to 86. If the match was not stopped in the 8th round, both fighters feel that if it went they might have won the match

distance. Suarez said he was just warming up, but Navarete felt that Suarez had a lot of experience, but he could hurt him on the inside. Due to the controversial nature of how the match ended, and how close it is overall, the rematch appears to be imminent.

Whether Navarrete can fight at this weight again, or will he reemptedment the jump to light weight?