Kelly Pavlik and Jermain Taylor had one of the most exciting fights of 2007.
Pavlik picked himself off the canvas in the second round and came back to stop Taylor in the sixth round in dramatic fashion to capture the WBC and WBO middleweight titles.
Their highly-anticipated rematch will be held on Saturday night at 6 on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The Pavlik-Taylor rematch promises to be another action-packed bout, but the middleweights will have serious competition for fight of the night with two 115-pound world title fights featuring four of the most entertaining fighters in boxing.
Jose Navarro (26-3, 12 KOs), a 2000 U.S. Olympian from South-Central L.A., challenges WBC super-flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (33-3-2, 14 KOs) and former WBA 115-pound champion Martin “El Gallo” Castillo challenges WBO super-flyweight champion Fernando Montiel.
Navarro throws a high volume of punches and always pushes the pace. Mijares is one of the hottest young stars from Mexico. Castillo is known for his bloody slugfests. Montiel is an outstanding boxer, but he usually ends up mixing it up. It all makes for a combustable pair of fights.
“I’m hoping to steal the show,” Navarro said. “My thing is to always please the crowd. We have a good chance to steal the show.”
Castillo is bracing himself for a tough fight.
“It’s going to be a war,” Castillo said.
Navarro is getting his fourth shot at a world title. He was the victim of one of the worst decisions of 2005 when he went to Japan and lost a split decision to then-WBC champion Katsushige Kawashima. He got another shot at the WBC title in 2006, traveling to Japan again and losing a very close decision to Masamori Tokuyama, 113-117, 113-116, 113-116. Navarro traveled to Russia in 2007 and lost another razor-thin decision to IBF champion Dimitri Kirilov, 112-116, 113-114, 113-114.
Navarro said he learned very important lessons from each of those title fights and he believes that experience will put him over the top against Mijares. He said the biggest lessons he learned were to fight every round as if he were losing the fight and not to overtrain and leave the fight in the gym.
“I want to make up for all of that with this fight,” Navarro said. “It might be my last opportunity.”
Castillo had always been prone to cuts throughout his career, so he had surgery in 2006 to have the bone shaved down above his right eye. Castillo won all three of his fights in 2007 and didn’t suffer any cuts.
“I feel a bit more confident after the surgery,” Castillo said.
ALTITUDE TRAINING
Navarro’s trainer, Frank Rivera of Laguna Beach, said Navarro spent six weeks training at Abel Sanchez’s new state-of-the-art compound called Summit Altitude Training
Center in Big Bear Lake.”This place is unbelievable,” Rivera said. “It has everything.”
Rivera said Navarro got incredible sparring from talented prospects Giovanni Segura and Luis Santa Cruz. Navarro sparred 80 rounds to prepare for Mijares.
CARLOS ARIAS/The Register
