By Ian S Palmer
WBO Super Bantamweight Champion Emanuel Navarrete of Mexico returns to the ring after a short layoff as he faces Juan Miguel Elorde of the Philippines at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas this Saturday, Sept. 14th. The 12-round fight can be seen on ESPN+ in America and BT Sport 1 in Britain and TSN 2 in Canada. Navarrete just fought on August 17th when he stopped Francisco De Vaca in the third round. Elorde last boxed in March when he beat Shohei Kawashima by 12-round unanimous decision to defend his WBO Asia Pacific Super Bantamweight Title.
The 24-year-old Navarrete won the title by beating Isaac Dogboe by unanimous decision last December and then stopped in in the 12th round in their rematch in May making this the third defence of his belt. Navarrete has an impressive mark of 28-1 along with 24 big Kos which gives him a current knockout ratio of 83 per cent so he obviously has a lot of power. The champion stands 5-feet-7-inches tall with a 72-inch reach. He turned pro back in 2012 when he was just 17 and has boxed 128 rounds since then.
Navarrete’s lone defeat came in his sixth pro bout when he came out on the wrong end of a four-round unanimous decision to Daniel Argueta. Other than meeting and beating Dogboe twice, the average fan won’t really recognize many of Navarrete’s opponents up to now other than perhaps Dennis Contreras, Luis Orozco and Glenn Porras. But on the bright side, most of his foes have entered the ring with winning records. He proved he has a solid chin against Dogboe and his power didn’t appear to fade in the later rounds.
Elorde is a 32-year-old who hails from Manila. He’s got a similar record to Navarrete at 28-1 but has 15 Kos to his name compared to the champion’s 24. He’s got average power with a current knockout ratio of 52 per cent. Elorde turned pro back in 2008 and has boxed a total of 146 rounds since. His lone defeat came back in 2011 when he dropped a four-round unanimous decision to Jerry Guevara. Most fans won’t recognize any of Elorde’s previous opponents and he’s never fought outside of Asia.
Elorde is 5-feet-8-inches tall with an unlisted reach so he has an inch height advantage over Navarrete. Just 12 of his 29 opponents have had winning records so Elorde’s certainly taking a step up in class this weekend. Not much is known about Elorde but he hasn’t lost for eight years and is currently in the midst of an 18-fight winning streak.
Prediction…
Elorde is basically an unknown outside of Asia but he’s a solid pro who should be able to make it a competitive fight…at least for a few rounds. He’ll need to earn the champion’s respect or Navarrete will eventually just walk through him though. I’m expecting Navarrete to keep his title Saturday night but it might be a tougher fight than expected.
