If you woke on Sunday and you saw the headline “Navarrete KO’s Baez in 6”, you probably wouldn’t think much of it. You would think the young Mexican just freight-trained through his opponent.
That was far from the truth. Emanuel Navarrete was being outboxed up to the point where a crushing body blow sent Eduardo Baez (21-3-2, 7 KOs) to the canvas.
“That’s a very Mexican punch,” said Navarrete. “It comes with my blood. And you can see, I don’t throw a perfect left hook like you’re used to seeing. But this one came out perfect for me. And you saw the result because not many guys can take that shot.”
Navarrete (36-1, 30 KOs) was trailing on two of the three judges’ cards (50-45 and 48-47) at the time of the stoppage, while one card had Navarrete ahead 49-46.
The ESPN boxing crew kept lamenting the fact that Navarrete’s frame wasn’t going to be able to hold the weight for long. They talked about his reluctance to get a Nutritionists saying that Navarrete commented that he wasn’t going to get one right now.
The danger of Navarrete’s win was it allows him to justify not doing the things he should do if he wants to be an upper echelon fighter. Yes, you can talk about his youth but that can only be an excuse for so long.
But Navarrete for far from being the only one that had an uneven performance.
Giovani Santilla won what should’ve been close fight that somehow, someway had two judges score the fight 100-90 (the other judge scored the fight 96-94). Santilla (30-0, 16 KOs) allowed Julio Luna (19-1-2, 10 KOs) to get inside all night. Luna himself had an argument that he won the fight.
“It was a lot tougher than I expected. Luna gave me a great fight, and I am just thankful for the opportunity to fight once again in my hometown.”
Santillan and Luna landed 150 power shots apiece, and Luna landed 22 more blows.
Santillan took unnecessary risks. That might’ve been the pressure from fighting in front of his home town fans but his performance left more questions than answers.
Nico Ali Walsh (6-0, 5 KOs) fought in a rare four round rematch against Reyes Sanchez (7-3, 3 KOs). Just like the Navarrete fight, if you look at the headline it doesn’t tell the entire story despite winning with a second round KO.
“It was so gratifying,” said Walsh. “Timothy Bradley called it in the fighter meetings yesterday. It was a beautiful shot. It was the shot I was looking for. It was the shot I was dreaming about, and it happened because I worked so hard for it.”
The knockout covered up the fact that Walsh had already spent the better part of the fight backing up in a straight line allowing Sanchez to hit him on the way out. Way too much for Walsh to be this happy with the win.
Photo Credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank via Getty Images
