Emanuel Navarrete doesn’t do boring fights. He is an all-action, high-octane attacker.
That approach has seen him beat Oscar Valdez, remain undefeated for more than a decade and, he hopes, will ultimately lead to a showdown with American star Shakur Stevenson.
WBO super-featherweight Navarrete boxes Robson Conceicao in Las Vegas, on the same bill as Stevenson, live on Sky Sports in the early hours of Friday morning.
Navarrete is already a three-weight world champion and he plans to continue his hugely impressive winning streak against Brazilian Olympic gold medallist Conceicao.
He puts much of his success down to a “weird style” of boxing.
“We all know it’s a weird style, it’s uncommon seeing a fighter throw irregular punches from different angles,” the Mexican told Sky Sports.
“But it has worked well for me. It has been very generous to me and it has helped me a lot and it has been fundamental to winning fights because my opponents don’t know how to figure it out.
“There are aspects of my style that I can’t explain how they’ve worked for me or how I’ve been able to do things and opponents are surprised by it because they can’t comprehend how I did that move, how I threw this punch, how I shifted this way and all that.”
His confidence is high after a career-best victory over Oscar Valdez last time out. As satisfying as all his victories have been for him, beating his Mexican rival “did leave a different taste”.
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Watch highlights of the WBO featherweight world title bout between Emanuel Navarrete and Eduardo Baez
“Because of all that it represented – the rivalry between Mexicans, everything that came with the fight, left me with happiness that I was able to fight him and overcome a Valdez that really came with a lot of desire, a lot of momentum, gave me a lot of satisfaction. Maybe extra satisfaction,” Navarrete said.
“It helped me because it opened new panoramas in my career. Good things are coming and I think the fight against Valdez influenced these things.”
Conceicao, who gave Valdez all sorts of problems in a contentious 2021 defeat, could be an even tougher opponent for the defending WBO super-featherweight champion.
“It’s difficult to fight against an Olympic style like that, the kind of character of Robson Conceicao,” Navarrete said.
“We’re going to have to work on closing the exits and forcing him to fight. That’s what I think I’m going to have to do, however if he comes out to brawl, that’s going to give us an advantage.”
Shakur Stevenson, who fights for the WBC lightweight title against Edwin De Los Santos on the same bill at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, has beaten both Valdez and Conceicao previously.
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Emanuel Navarrete retained his WBO title on the scorecards against Joet Gonzalez but both fighters gave us a thrilling 12 rounds in San Diego
Navarrete would like to pursue a championship in a fourth weight division and ultimately take on Stevenson.
“I’ve been focusing on unifying in this division,” the Mexican said. “It’s the perfect division to unify.
“I’m going to continue doing fights and creating a legacy at 130lbs and then after that I’m going to move up in weight and try to win another title.
“Shakur will be a good fight. Personally I think it will be a difficult fight because of everything that Shakur represents. He has an Olympic style, he’s elusive. He’s very strong. He’s never been hurt, no one has ever seen him hurt so that’s going to be a big factor. Then with me fighting him it’ll be very interesting.
“We’ll have to wait and see how things happen after this fight that I have and we’ll see what the next year holds for me.”
Watch Emanuel Navarrete and Shakur Stevenson in a world championship double-header from 1.30am on Friday morning live on Sky Sports Arena.