Referee and Ringside Doctor Save Emanuel Navarrete
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 11 May 2025
What happened during the weigh-in for the WBO title fight between current champion Emanuel Navarrete and Filipino challenger Charly Suarez gave a hint on what will transpire during the fight.
Navarrete was clearly out of shape, and it took him three attempts to make the weight. And from his looks during the weigh-in he did not have a solid training camp. He appeared listless and drained to the bone.
The Suarez camp did not miss that poor preparation of Navarrete. They knew exactly what to do when they saw Navarrete struggle to make weight. But they did not say too much about it publicly. They let the performance of Suarez do the talking.
At fight night Suarez came off the bench exploding. He brought the fight to Navarrete. The combat was so intense that most of those watching the fight that saw Navarrete during the weigh-in can’t hardly wait to see the champion run out of gas.
Sure, Navarrete was landing clean shots, but Suarez was too. And as the fight progressed, it appeared that whoever losses steam will end up with the short end of the stick. That was how intense it was.
Navarrete according to the judges was ahead on point, but barely. There were more rounds to come, and Suarez didn't appear to be losing steam. In fact, the more he got hit, the more he kept on going.
Then came the fateful sixth round. There was a slight clash of heads as both fighters duck. But the contact was more of a graze than a bone jarring. And as they separated, Suarez landed a clean shot and immediately as Navarrete came up he had a nasty cut on his left eyebrow.
The referee declared that the cut was from a headbutt although TV replays showed it was from a clean punch! Different angles of the TV shots were shown, and they clearly indicated the cut was from a punch.
The fight continued after the doctor first checked on Navarrete. For sure he knew the cut could be an issue as the fight went on but it being a title fight, he allowed it to continue. Navarrete’s corner did an awesome job stopping the bleeding but in round seven it started to bleed profusely, clearly bothering Navarrete.
Shortly after round 8th started, the referee asked the doctor to again to check the cut as Navarrete was bleeding badly. Together, they decided that the fight should be stopped, and the winner was determined by the scorecards. (78-75, 77-76, 77-76 ) A technical decision so to speak.
This is where the controversy started.
To this writer, the referee was inept. He should have stopped the fight and declared Suarez the winner by TKO.
But he did not, and the fight went on the scorecards. Navarrete won as he was leading at that stage of the fight according to the judges.
The incident showed clearly again that in boxing, for a challenger to beat a house champion, a popular one at that, he must knock him out or at least beat him badly. Otherwise, he must deal with five opponents. The three judges, referee and the ringside doctor.
Incidentally, did you know that in California, even a practicing doctor whose specialty is psychiatry can be a ringside doctor? I often wonder when was the last time that doctor had seen blood oozing from a facial cut!
But I digress!
With the injustice that has occurred which cannot be changed, the best thing that Bob Arum and Top Rank can do to ease the pain of being cheated, is to arrange a rematch as soon as possible.
That is the only sane thing to do. Arum owes it to Suarez, the boxing fans and the Filipino people!
Are you listening Bob?
And for whatever it is worth, push the use of technology to erase controversies. Instant replay is used in other sports like basketball, tennis and volleyball. Why can’t it be in boxing?
In fact, a well-known and respected Filipino international boxing judge, Rey Danseco has been pushing that issue to WBC. Hopefully, they will do it and that the other sanctioning bodies will follow.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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