Emanuel Navarrete defends world title for second time, Jessie Magdaleno defeats Rafael Rivera in battle of former champions
By Bill Tibbs at ringside
Last night at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, CA, WBO world super bantamweight champion Emanuel Navarrete, as strong and rugged as they come, made his second title defence against Phoenix, Arizona’s undefeated Francisco De Vaca.
By the 3rd round Navarrete (28-1, 24 KOs) was pouring on the punishment and De Vaca (20-1, 6 KOs) had nothing to keep him off forcing the referee to step in and stop the fight at 1:54 of the round.
In the semi-main event, former world champion Jessie Magdaleno and former world title challenger Rafael Rivera squared off in a great featherweight slug fest. Magdaleno, looking to put together some wins at 126-pounds, was simply a bit too sharp for the game Rivera who was dropped two times in the fight.
Then, an accidental clash of heads caused a bad cut on the nose of Magdaleno that forced a stoppage and they went to the judges’ cards with Magdaleno ahead on all 3. After the fight Magdaleno said, “I want a title shot, you saw I’m ready. I want a title shot in my next fight”.
Undercard:
Elvis Rodriguez TKO 1 Jesus Gonzales
Arnold Barboza Jr TKO 4 Ricky Sismundo
Janibek Alimkhanuly TKO 5 Stuart McLellan
Chris Van Heerden W UD 8 Aslanbek Kozaev
Javier Molina W UD 8 Manuel Mendez
Dmitry Yun W UD 4 Javier Martinez