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Emanuel Navarrete vacates WBO super bantamweight title
Emanuel "Vaquero" Navarrete has officially vacated his WBO super bantamweight world championship.
In a letter dated July 11 and signed by his representative, Guillermo Brito Rodríguez, and addressed to the president of the World Boxing Organization, Francisco Valcárcel, it stated that Navarrete had made a decision to officially vacate the title after having made five successful defenses.
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Navarrete stated that he's leaving the weight class "because the requirement to make the weight limit of the division was increasingly requiring more sacrifice."
The boxer also made a request to "be ranked as number 1 at 126 pounds and immediately fight for the world title of this division, which will be vacant, against the highest ranked available contender."
The sanctioning body has a governing rule, where a fighter who decides to vacate his title is automatically given the option of being the highest ranked challenger, in a new division, if the fighter is indeed dropping the title to move up in weight.
The WBO world featherweight champion is Shakur Stevenson, who recently made it clear that he's dropping the title to move up in weight to 130-pounds.
Currently, the top five WBO featherweights are Michael Conlan (13-0, 7 KO's), Rubén Villa (18-0, 5 KO's), Ryan Walsh (26-2-2, 12 KO's), Jessie Magdaleno (28-1, 18 KO's) and Musashi Mori (11-0 , 6 KO's).
Navarrete arrived on the world scene when he conquered the WBO super bantamweight championship on December 8, 2018 in New York, winning by unanimous decision over then undefeated Isaac Dogboe.
Between 2019 and February 2020, he defended his title against Dogboe, Francisco de Vaca, Juan Miguel Elorde, Francisco Horta and Jeo Santísima. All of those defenses were resolved by knockout.
In his most recent presentation in the ring, on June 20, he knocked out Uriel López in six rounds. That stay busy fight was contested at the featherweight limit, in what was the first chapter of the live boxing series "VolvemosConPunch" - presented by Zanfer Promotions at the TV Azteca studios at CdMx.