It’s a damn fun fight too.
The December 9th major Top Rank on ESPN card headlined by lightweight unification between arguable pound for pound king Vasily Lomachenko and fellow lightweight titleholder Jose Pedraza has secured its co-feature. Ghanaian titleholder Isaac Dogboe (20-0, 14 KOs) will defend his super bantamweight against Mexican prospect Emanuel Navarrete (25-1, 22 KOs) before the main event.
I’m going to go ahead and give two thumbs up to this one. 23 year old Mexican prospect and soon to be title challenger Emanuel Navarrete is untested, true, but I’ve been covering him for a while now on UTR each week. He’s a super fun fighter. This is partly because Navarrete isn’t much of an athlete or technician. He’s a power puncher through and through, but not a normal one. The young Mexican brings thudding hands that physically move men and beat them down.
WBO titleholder Isaac Dogboe, 24, will have to be careful to avoid those shots. That’s not something he’s usually all that good at either. The Ghanaian is there to fight from the opening bell. This almost bit him early against Jessie Magdaleno in his title win, but Dogboe doubled down and weathered the early adversity to score the late finish. This is a risky fight even though Isaac will be favored to defend his title here thanks to his superior athleticism and overall ability. Emanuel Navarrete is going to be right in his face throwing bombs. I suspect Isaac Dogboe will just decide to throw them back at his own peril, ability be damned.
There is nothing not to like about this one as an appetizer to the major main event. This is a great card.
