WBO president Gustavo Olivieri announced that Charly Suarez (18-0) of the Philippines will be getting the next title shot at 130 pounds. Olivieri tweeted: "Please be advised that the WBO World Championship Committee has unanimously voted to order negotiations between unified WBO/IBF junior lightweight champion Emanuel Navarrete and the [WBO] #1 contender and mandatory challenger Charly Suarez to discharge [Navarrete's] pending mandatory obligation. The parties are granted twenty days to reach terms. Failing an agreement, purse bid proceedings will be ordered in accordance with WBO regulations. The minimum bid for the junior lightweight (130-pound) division is set at $150,000. Official ruling will be published later today." Suarez fought Navarrete in May of last year and should have been named the WBO champion after a Suarez punch led to a cut on Navarrete that ended the fight. The proper call was a TKO win for Suarez, but instead, they treated it like an accidental headbutt and went to the scorecards, where Navarrete was awarded a narrow technical decision. The result was later changed to a no contest, but that still wasn't fair to Suarez, who remains an uncrowned champion and has not fought in the past ten months. Credit to the WBO for eventually doing the right thing here.
PRIOR BOXINGTALK COVERAGE
MARCH 2, 2026: Emanuel Navarrete unified two junior lightweight titles on Saturday night with a TKO triumph over now former-IBF champion Eduardo Nunez. The pair arrived at Glendale, Arizona's's Desert Diamond Arena each seeking to secure a second strap to add to their collection. But it was Navarrete who claimed the second belt, doing so with an assured performance in Arizona. Victory for Navarrete, who entered the fight as WBO champion, increased the clamor for him to seek undisputed status across the junior lightweight division. A series of heavy blows in the ninth round damaged Nunez, forcing the doctors to examine him before the contest was allowed to continue. Navarrete, already a three-weight champion, exploited the issues however, leaving his foe with a swollen eyes and the contest waved off shortly after. Now a two-belt champ and already a three-division champ, Navarrete inches closer to Hall of Fame credentials.
JUNE 2, 2025: According to WBO president Gustavo Olivieiri, the California State Athletic Commission has officially ruled the May 11th bout between Emanuel Navarrete and Charly Suarez to be a no contest. The bout was originally ruled a technical decision win for Navarrete, allowing him to retain his WBO junior lightweight championship. Most people felt that the fight-ending cut suffered by Navarrete was caused by a Suarez punch, not an accidental headbutt, and therefore Suarez should have been declared the winner by technical knockout and awarded the WBO championship. In light of the CSAC's ruling, the WBO ordered an immediate rematch between Navarrete and Suarez. [The rematch did not take place on an immediate basis as Navarrete was allowed to unify vs. the IBF champion in March of 2026.
MAY 11, 2025: Emanuel Navarrete retained his WBO junior lightweight world title in San Diego on Saturday with an eighth-round technical decision over Filipino contender Charly Suarez. The fight was halted early due to a cut over Navarrete’s left eye, which referee Edward Collantes
ruled was caused by an accidental headbutt. [Instant replay showed Suarez landed a punch just before Suarez's follow through the clash of heads. It was very difficult to tell whether the punch or the head caused the cut, and the California State Athletic Commission conducted an instant replay review. Boxingtalk is of the opinion that thepunch caused the cut, which would have given Suarez the championship by TKO. It was a very difficult decision to make, and Suarez deserves a rematch.] The headbutt ruling meant that the winner wouldbe determined on the scorecards. Navarrete prevailed by scores of 77-76 (twice) and 78-75.
Navarrete (40-2-1, 32 KOs) came out firing, launching wild right hands and leaping left hooks that bloodied Suarez’s nose in the opening round. Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs), a 2016 Olympian, found moments of success, sometimes landing on Navarrete’s head and sometimes just on his gloves.
In the sixth, Navarrete suffered the cut, and the two continued to trade heavy shots in the seventh as the Mexican began to bleed profusely. The ringside physician waved it off just after bell sounded to start round eight.
“It’s that warrior spirit of being a Mexican that helped us today,” Navarrete said. “I felt good, I felt strong, I felt complete. Unfortunately, what happened with the headbutt obviously it ended like that. But while we were fighting, I felt good.
“From the first moment of the impact, I knew it was a headbutt. It split my eyebrow completely, and from the first moment I noticed it was a headbutt.”
Suarez said, “Right now I’m sad, but that is part of the game, and I know that Navarrete won the fight, but that’s part of the game. I would like to make a rematch. I want a rematch with Navarrete.”
