A little guy isn’t supposed to enter the ring with love handles.
A heavyweight? Sure. You could always pinch an inch on Larry Holmes, and you can just about pinch a foot on Tyson Fury.
But in the junior featherweight, featherweight and junior lightweight divisions, rare is the world-class, in-his-prime fighter with that visible jiggle above his hips.
Experienced boxing observers know it doesn’t matter much, that big muscles don’t win fights – if anything, being musclebound can limit fluidity of motion or lead a boxer to tire faster. But it’s hard not to let such aesthetics influence your thinking anyway.
Certainly, there’s a natural instinct to see a guy like Emanuel Navarrete – who’s never had a hint of muscular definition, who perpetually looks like he should be fighting one division lower than he is – and sell him slightly short, whether in making a prediction for his next fight or in assessing his overall ceiling.
Well, it’s time to stop selling “Vaquero” short. On Saturday night, as a betting underdog against Eduardo “Sugar” Nunez – not because he deserved to be, but because the oddsmakers, too, proved susceptible to selling him short – Navarrete scored the kind of win that reframes a fighter’s legacy.
With his one-sided 11th-round TKO of the younger, seemingly stronger Nunez, Navarrete may have just flipped his Hall of Fame odds.
Prior to this result, his resume settled in right alongside any number of good, solid, lower weight class titleholders with names destined to linger eternally on the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s ballot. He was a Paulie Ayala, a Vuyani Bungu, an Acelino Freitas, a Chris John. He was a Leo Santa Cruz – who hasn’t made the ballot yet but will soon, and once he does, he figures to remain a nominee in perpetuity.
Navarrete was headed down the same path as those men.
But overnight, I suspect this Mexican Cowboy went from underdog for entry to favorite.
Navarrete needed one more win, one victory achieved in style at a time when folks were doubting him. And he got it.
The doubts were understandable, and not just because of Navarrete’s physique. (By the way, he reportedly hired a nutritionist for the first time ahead of this fight, to great practical effect, but it did nothing to eliminate the love handles.)
Navarrete turned 31 in January, and he has the kind of energy-based style that tends not to lead to long careers.
At 28, when he had to get off the canvas to turn back unheralded Liam Wilson, the whispers began. Two fights later, he battled Robson Conceicao to a majority draw, despite entering the fight as an overwhelming -1300 favorite. Then Vaquero moved up to lightweight and lost by split decision to Denys Berinchyk – Navarrete’s first defeat in a dozen years.
Two fights later, on the other side of his 30th birthday, Navarrete battled on roughly even terms with lightly regarded Charly Suarez until the fight was stopped due to a cut over the defending titlist’s eyebrow. It initially went into the books as a technical decision win for Navarrete, but after replays made clear that a Suarez punch caused the cut, the result was changed to a no-contest. Had it been ruled correctly on the spot, Suarez would have captured the belt by TKO.
Add it all up, and over the three years preceding Saturday’s fight with Nunez, Navarrete had a draw, a loss and a no-contest that should have been a loss, to go along with three wins, one of which was decidedly unimpressive.
There was every reason to think Navarrete’s prime, which began in 2018, had ended in 2023 and he was now on the slide.
Navarrete has been a pro for 14 years and had taken part in 16 title fights before facing Nunez, reaching at least the start of the 12th round nine times, including in one non-title bout. Fighters who come forward, rely on volume, seek to overwhelm opponents and endure a lot of tough rounds don’t usually climb ladders again once they’ve started going down chutes. If you’ve shown signs of fading, there typically isn’t a period of un-fading.
And that’s why it was so impressive and so stunning that Navarrete just scored arguably the best win of his 44-fight career.
It wasn’t quite on the level of 37-year-old Roberto Duran upsetting 28-year-old Iran Barkley, but there was a similar flavor. A lot of people didn’t realize Navarrete still had that in him.
For the first four rounds, he used his length and boxed beautifully, the jab causing Nunez all sorts of problems. In rounds five and six, the 28-year-old Nunez realized he needed to rumble to have a chance, so a war broke out – and Navarrete was still getting the better of most of the exchanges.
One call from DAZN blow-by-blow man Todd Grisham in the ninth round perfectly encapsulated the experience of taking on Navarrete. “Nunez hammering away,” Grisham said, as Sugar enjoyed a momentary rally. As soon as those words came out of Grisham’s mouth, Navarrete was dishing out something more fierce in return, prompting Grisham, after a momentary pause, to continue, “but then he’s got to go through this!”
Nunez’s right eye swelled nearly shut over the course of the ninth and Navarrete whacked it bloody in the 10th, prompting an appropriate, merciful stoppage as the 11th round began. Nunez had no hope of coming back, as he trailed 98-92 on two cards and 100-90 on the third. And with that, Navarrete snapped his opponent’s 19-fight win streak that had spanned nearly eight years.
To my eyes, this wasn’t the best win or greatest performance of Navarrete’s career – but it places a strong second, behind only his August 2023 unanimous decision victory over Oscar Valdez in their first fight.
With Navarrete coming off the rocky Wilson battle, Valdez was favored by as much as -190, while Navarrete was up to a +160 ’dog.
Navarrete smacked one of his eyes shut, too, and controlled the action almost to the extent he did against Nunez, in a striking display of everything that makes Vaquero an absolute pain in the ass.
Valdez just couldn’t get inside on him, never knew where the punches were coming from and couldn’t find a lull in the awkward Navarrete’s output during which he could attack. Valdez constantly looked like he was about to pull the trigger, only to see a four-punch combination launched in his direction, handcuffing him. Valdez’s corner told him all the right things – to be patient and look for the opportunity for a counter left hook – but he just couldn’t find a spot to meaningfully apply his punching power.
My longtime boxing media colleague Bill Dettloff posted a tweet that night that stuck with me: “Every fighter watching Navarrete: ‘Sign the contract. I’ll wreck this mf.’ Two rounds in: ‘WTF?!’”
Maybe there was a degree of mirage to Navarrete’s struggles the last three years. He had surgery on his left hand after the Conceicao draw. He clearly moved up too far in weight when he lost to Berinchyk at 135lbs. Perhaps he waited too long to hire a nutritionist.
It’s possible there was no decline, but rather just a series of suboptimal situations and preparations.
Whatever the case, Navarrete, with momentum, popularity and two of the division’s four belts, is perfectly positioned now at 130lbs for additional meaningful fights that could burnish his Hall of Fame credentials.
He has an alphabet mandate to give Suarez a rematch. Or he could vacate that strap and take on fellow titlist O’Shaquie Foster if there’s more money in that. Foster and Navarrete are ranked first and second in the division by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the lineal title is vacant, meaning that fight would crown a new recognized champion.
Alternatively, Navarrete could take on the winner of the upcoming Anthony Cacace-James “Jazza” Dickens bout, or he could square off against Raymond Ford. There are also several outstanding featherweights who may be interested in moving up to test themselves against Vaquero, including Angelo Leo, Rafael Espinoza and Brandon Figueroa. There’s not a bad fight on paper in the bunch.
Navarrete vs. Nunez looked like an exceptional fight on paper. It had its thrilling moments, but it wasn’t a Fight of the Year contender – because it wasn’t competitive enough. Navarrete was just that damned good.
And Nunez acknowledged as much after the fight. He even fanboy-ed out a bit during the post-fight interviews, gushing with praise and trying on his conqueror’s cowboy hat.
In that moment, Navarrete felt not like your typical championship-level mid-career Mexican boxer with something to prove. He crossed over into the realm of Mexican living legend who had proven all he needs to. He may still be in his prime, may still have several elite years left, but he also has become one of those veteran Mexican warriors idolized by the younger fighters on their way up.
As he should be.
Who cares if he isn’t a body-beautiful? The parts of his body that matter most are his fists. Those are the body parts he’ll be dipping into a bucket of plaster in Canastota, New York, soon after his career is over.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
