Wow! Emanuel Navarrete is really keen on becoming a 4 division world champion. Navarrete has vast experience when it comes to world title fights so he should be the favorite here but lately he is also showing signs of vulnerability. He was badly hurt in his first fight at 130 before changing the tide of the fight and was also losing on points on his last fight but thanks to his 2 knockdowns he settled for a draw.
I always hear Berinchyk's name but I haven't seen his fights. He is an Olympic silver medalist so he is armed with good skills. Sadly he does not have the fan base and was probably managed poorly. It took him 9 years before earning his first title shot. At 35, Berinchyk is physically not the same but maybe being the regular guy in this weigh class enables him to become stronger than Navarette who loves to come forward.
Me thinking as well that Navarette might be swallowing more than he can chew. 135 lbs is pretty much stack up right now, so props to him for moving up in weight very quickly. He might win this fight, but who will be next, Tank Davis is the face of this division, but there's Zepeda, Frank Martin or Loma.
So we will see how far can Navarette, no doubt that he has the tools, power and being a brawler, but this new weight class would be very different for him as there are more technical fighters that he might face in the future.
He is a very disciplined fighter and he wants to challenge himself so he is moving up to cover more territories but I believe this is the farthest that he can go, there are a lot of oppositions in the higher weight category and I don't think he has all that it takes to beat the like of Tank Davis or Loma.
It's more of a ambition of a fighter, and yes, they want to challenge themselves on how far they can go. Even Inoue himself, top pound for pound, might not go as high as we can think of. Sooner or later they will step on a weight class that they really don't belong. Zepeda will be a big test for him before taking more challenges like Tank or Shakur.
Everybody wants to be like Manny Pacquiao the 8 division World Champion, but so far I have not seen a fighter of this generation, who can do this, you have to start in the Flyweight division and have a good muscle build-up to be able to sustain going up, and of course, you have to be an extraordinary fighter like Manny Pacquiao and of course lucky break.
And it just shows how different Manny is, maybe once in a lifetime that we can see a fighter that started like 112 lbs and move up as high as 154 lbs, move up in weight and capture 8 belts and still has a lot to offer as there are reports of him fighting Conor Benn.