Dainier Pero hit the canvas two times in his main event on Most Valuable Prospects 12 on Friday at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida.
Pero was unfazed as he won a 10-round unanimous decision over Cesar Navarro, but the two knockdowns in the third round were the first glimpse of vulnerability from the rising heavyweight.
Friday’s fight was the 2025 debut for Pero, 11-0 (8 KOs), who won five fights last year. A 2020 Cuban Olympian, Pero, 25, trains under Bob Santos in Las Vegas. Santos described the knockdowns against Navarro almost like a rite of passage for Pero.
“You never want to see your fighter go down, but that being said, this is the heavyweight division – one punch can change everything,” Santos told BoxingScene. “It's better to go through that type of adversity earlier on, because it's going to happen at some point. If you fight Tyson Fury, if you fight Deontay Wilder, you fight some of these types of guys, it's going to happen.”
Navarro, 13-3 (11 KOs), 25, entered the Pero fight in the best shape of his career. Navarro, of Sonora, Mexico, was there to win and had a full training camp for the fight.
“I'm sure he's going to take this as a wake-up call,” Santos said of Pero. “He knows you got to be alert at all times. But that being said, there's no doubt in my mind he's still the best young heavyweight in the sport. He showed his mettle. He got up, and after that, he dominated the fight.”
Santos also pointed out how Pero didn’t just hang around to win the fight after going down. He pressed the action, rather than boxing off defensively or tentatively.
“He's a Cuban boxer – he could fight off the back foot,” Santos said. “But he still pressed the action. He still pushed that guy back. To me, that's a huge plus, and it tells me a lot knowing that when he does go through adversity, he's not going to quit.
“After he went down, he performed at a higher level,” Santos said. “He took the fight to that guy, hit him with tremendous shots, put great combinations together, had a great output, so I'm expecting him to be in bigger and better fights.”
Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.