Emanuel Navarrete (40-2-1, 32 KOs) retained his WBO title tonight with a technical decision win over Charly Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs), with the fight officially being stopped a the 0:01 mark in Round 8 when the fight was halted due to a severe cut over Navarrete’s eye.
Almost all of the talk about this fight will be in regards to how that cut over Navarrete’s eye actually occurred as there was a sequence in which Suarez hit Navarrete with a clean punch with their heads immediately coming together for a clash, followed by a glove scape. In real time the cut was ruled as a result of a head clash but replays were certainly debatable, with many observers believing the cut was from the punch.
Ultimately most of the replays at the time proved to be inconclusive so the commission wouldn’t overturn the head clash ruling, and that meant when the doctor stopped the fight a short time later it would go to the scorecards as opposed to being a TKO win for Suarez. With Navarrete having gotten off to a fast start in the fight, he officially took the win on scores of 78-75, 77-76, 77-76.
In the post-fight interview Navarrete would insist he knew immediately his cut was a result of a head clash while Suarez would say just the opposite, believing his punch did the damage.
Several minutes after the decision was announced, ESPN continued to review footage from every possible camera angle and eventually got what appeared to be a clean, zoomed-in angle that showed Navarrete’s skin tearing open from the punch and not the head clash.
For now, however, it’s a hard luck loss for Suarez who will surely appeal the outcome here and push for a rematch. The problem with a potential rematch, however, is that Navarrete struggled badly to make weight for this fight, only making weight on his sixth attempt. Taking that into consideration, it’s likely he may need to move up in weight, but will otherwise need lengthy time off to let this cut heal up.
Raymond Muratalla UD-12 Zaur Adullaev
Raymond Muratalla (23-0, 17 KOs) scored a unanimous decision over Zaur Adullaev (20-2, 12 KOs) tonight to become the interim IBF lightweight champion in a fight that just never quite took off despite being fairly competitive in spots. This fight was cagey from the opening bell, which is sort of understandable if you’re just expecting both fighters to take each other’s measure, but the fight never really broke out of that mode.
Not a lot by way of clean punches landed or sustained action but Murtalla was just better enough to edge most of the rounds over the duration, particularly when he managed to use some creative offense in spots. In the end Murtalla took a win by a wide margin on official scores of 118-110, 119-109, and 119-109.
