I published a recap of the weekend’s action on Boxingnews24.com and have shared it here. Below I will post an excerpt but please check out the full article on Boxingnews24.com and all other content from their team of contributors.
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“Emmanuel Navarrete closed the show with eleven seconds on the clock to secure the first defense of his WBO Featherweight Championship from the Silver Spur Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. The twenty-six year-old champion from Mexico defended the title he won back in October against Ruben Villa with a dominant performance. In front of a sold out pro Diaz crowd, Navarrete dropped his challenger four times with Diaz going down in the closing stages of the fight. Diaz’s corner signaled for the officials to stop the fight after their fighter rose from the final knockdown. The fight was well out of reach on the scorecards but Diaz fought bravely. Navarrete advanced to 33-1 (28 KO’s) and 8-0 in title fights having won his first championship at super bantamweight back in 2018. Diaz fell to 26-3 (16 KO’s) and 0-2 in title fights while being stopped for the first time in his career.”
“On the undercard Brooklyn, New York’s Edgar Berlanga advanced to 17-0 (16 KO’s) but saw his sixteen fight first round knockout streak come to an end. Not only did he fail to score the opening round finish he went the distance for the first time. For a fighter who had hardly gone two minutes as a pro he went twenty-four minutes to reach the final bell of an eight round contest. In the post fight interview with ESPN’s Bernardo Osuna he gave himself a C grade for failing to use his jab effectively and for not going to the body enough. Berlanga won the fight by wide scores of 79-69 twice with a wider 79-68 in a fight where he scored four knockdowns with the final one being in the closing seconds of the fight. Berlanga is obviously still a work in progress as he has only gone as far as eight rounds and has not been thoroughly tested through seventeen professional fights. While his streak has garnered him a lot of attention and fan fare it has certainly stunted his development as a fighter as he has not had to face the adversity most guys would have seen by this point.”
Jersey George's Boxing Blog 