WBO junior featherweight titleholder Emanuel Navarrete (28-1, 24 KOs) will ride the momentum from his third round knockout last weekend to defend his belt against Juan Miguel Elorde (28-1, 15 KOs) on September 14, with Top Rank’s Carl Moretti confirming the news to ESPN.
“The paperwork is done and I expect to get it back shortly,” Moretti said. “Elorde is ranked No. 2 in the WBO and the fight is sanctioned. Elorde was already in the gym and he took the fight with no hesitation. It’s Mexico versus the Philippines on Mexican Independence Day weekend. We’re very happy we could get the deal done with all parties.”
With this deal finalized Navarette, 24, will be making another world title defense just a month after his last one, which is pretty damn rare in today’s boxing landscape. That said, Navarrete took basically no damage in his last fight and Elorde doesn’t really figure to be much of a threat — largely because Elorde is 32 and has mostly only fought low-level opposition in the Philippines.
Then again, Navarrete was also basically a complete unknown until he came out of nowhere to stomp Isaac Dogboe twice. But he was still a ‘young lion’ at least. Whatever the case, Navarrete is keeping busy anyway, and that’s usually a good thing for everybody.