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Emanuel Navarrete: "O'Shaquie Foster
Hasn’t Faced A Fighter Like Me"
Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete is preparing for the most
important battle of his career.
The WBO/IBF super featherweight king will face WBC champion
O’Shaquie Foster in a unification showdown on Saturday, Oct.
24, at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio.
In the 10-round featherweight co-feature, unbeaten Albert
“Chop Chop” Gonzalez steps up against Fort Worth native and
former two-time world title challenger Edward Vazquez.
Additionally, super lightweight contender Frank Martin will
face Morocco’s Tarik Zaina in a 10-rounder, while unbeaten
Steven Navarro meets Emanuel Moreno in a 10-round
bantamweight scrap.
Navarrete-Foster, Gonzalez-Vazquez, Martin-Zaina and
Navarro-Moreno will be streamed LIVE on DAZN beginning at 8
p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
Before the main broadcast, additional undercard action will
stream live on DAZN, Top Rank and DAZN’s YouTube channels,
and the Top Rank Classics FAST channel on Roku, Tubi, Pluto
and Vizio.
Navarrete (40-2-1, 33 KOs), a three-division world champion,
has won titles at super bantamweight, featherweight and
super featherweight. After an unsuccessful May 2024
lightweight title bid against Denys Berinchyk, he returned
to 130, where he stopped Oscar Valdez in their December 2024
rematch before facing Charly Suarez the following May. In
February, he delivered a career-best performance, stopping
hard-punching IBF champion Eduardo Nuñez in the 11th round.
Foster (25-3, 12 KOs) has hit top form, defeating Stephen
Fulton last December before defending his title against
Raymond Ford in May.
Following a recent training session in San Juan Zitlaltepec,
this is what Navarrete said:
On his daily training routine…
“I start with cardio in the morning. Then, at one, we box
for about two or three hours. And at night, around seven or
eight, we go back to the gym. That’s when I work with my
strength and conditioning coach. We’ve been adding some
things that I wasn’t doing before. I feel a little stronger,
more solid. It’s a little more difficult because there’s
more wear and tear and less time to rest, but I feel
stronger and more solid. We do this six days a week, and on
Sunday we try to rest completely. We’ve been in camp for
almost two months.”
On how training camp is progressing…
“I feel good and strong. I think our training camp is right
where it needs to be at this point ahead of the fight. We’re
going to make the most of the time we have left, and I’m
confident we’ll arrive in excellent condition on fight
night.”
On Foster and his approach to the fight…
“He is a great champion. He looks very good, very solid,
very confident, and I think that will help us put on an
excellent fight. Knowing how Foster boxes and what I can
offer inside the ring, I think we’re going to try to
pressure him and look to land to the body so that he starts
slowing down and we can catch him more cleanly and more
often in the later rounds.”
On what gives him confidence against Foster…
“We all know that fighting against Foster is very difficult.
He likes to move around a lot, but that’s something we can
work on. I’m confident that he hasn’t faced a fighter like
me, and I think that can help me. Either way, the foundation
of all of this is the work, the preparation and how much
we’re demanding of ourselves in this camp.”
On what the unification means for Mexican boxing…
“I think this fight is going to mean a lot for Mexican
boxing. That it’s a unification for three titles speaks for
itself. I think this fight is going to be very important in
the history of Mexican boxing, and I think a win would be
something tremendous for Mexico.”
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