Christopher Diaz probably had too much courage for his own good.
Featherweight titleholder Emanuel Navarrete received spirited resistance from Diaz but in the end the champion delivered a severe beating before finally scoring a last-second knockout Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Fla.
Navarrete (33-1, 28 KOs) put Diaz (26-3, 16 KOs) down four times, the last time with about 30 seconds left in the fight. He managed to get up, took a series of hard follow-up punches and his corner stopped it to save him from further punishment.
The official time was 2:49 of round 12, meaning only 11 seconds remained. And no one questioned the stoppage.
“I saw how hurt he was and I was concerned for him,” Navarrete said through a translator. “I’m glad they threw in the towel. … I looked at him. I’m happy he wasn’t severly hurt. We were able to talk [afterward]. He was responsive, everything was OK.
“That’s what the sport is about, caring for your fellow competitor. So thank goodness he’s OK.”
Diaz, fighting for a title for the second time, tried everything to compete with Navarrete but nothing worked consistently.
The Puerto Rican boxed from the outside early in the fight but that allowed his long-armed counterpart from Mexico to land punches from a safe distance. And when Diaz worked his way inside, Navarrete, the busier of the two, still got the better of exchanges.
Finally, when it was clear he had to score a knockout to win, he threw caution to the wind and turned a good bout into a firefight. The fans ate it up for obvious reasons. However, Diaz paid a price for his courage.
Navarrete, who had put Diaz down in Round 4, turned the trick twice in a brutal Round 8. When the round was over, Diaz, on wobbly legs, was bleeding form a cut under his left eye, from his nose and from his mouth. He was a mess.
Still, he undoubtedly won the admiration of everyone watching when he continued to engage Navarrete. He got in some big shots in Rounds 11 and 12 but took many more himself as the final bell approached.
In the 12th both boxers fought as if they needed a knockout, which provided wild entertainment. Still, it appeared as if Diaz was going to survive when, with about 30 seconds remaining, he collapsed under a flurry of hard, damaging shots. He obeyed his instincts by continuing to try but his trainer had seen enough. He signaled a ringside official, who then instructed the referee to end the fight.
The fight certainly lived up the standards of the Mexico vs. Puerto Rico rivalry, although that didn’t provide Diaz much solace.
“I’m a little disappointed,” he said. “I always want to win. It’s a title shot. I want to be with a belt right now. But there’s next time. He’s a great f—ing fighter. He hit hard, you could see. We went to war.
“I made my best fight. I was in shape, I was good. But I have a family. I have to go home safe.”
Navarrete, who was making the first defense of his WBO 126-pound title, is now setting his sights on fellow featherweight titleholders Gary Russell Jr. and Leo Santa Cruz. The problem is it won’t be easy to lure them into the ring, in part because they fight for competing handlers.
For that reason, he’s leaving open the possibility of moving up to the talent-rich 130-pound division.
“The first thing I have to do is take a rest,” he said. “This fight took a lot out of me. I think I’ve earned that rest. And, yeah, there are a lot of good fighters at 126, but none of them really want to fight me. So in the end if no one wants to fight me at 126, I have to analyze what the landscape is at 130 pounds and then look for a good fight there.”
The better Navarrete performs, the more difficult it might be to find that good fight.
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