At the Table Mountain Casino in Friant, California, next to Yosemite’s National Park, ESPN’s Friday Night Fights showcased two brothers of former champions Manny Pacquiao and Jose Navarro. Bobby Pacquiao, 25-11-3, 11 KO’s making his 2nd U.S. appearance won a strange ending as Carlos Navarro 26-4-1, 21 KO’s helped the referee Jon Schorle count himself out in the 7th round.
The fight started off with Pacquiao having some grip problems with his shoes on the canvas. Navarro came on strong and took advantage of the situation. Every round would find Pacquiao with his shoes taped to help with the slippage. Navarro continued to pursue Pacquiao around the ring. Pacquiao would be warned a couple of times for low blows.
It looked as if Navarro had a game plan and it was working for him. That all changed when Pacquiao found his footing and started to turn the fight around. Pacquiao connected with a lot of body shots during round 4 that started to wear down a winded Navarro.
Pacquiao picked up the speed and began to land shots and counter with good accuracy. In round 6, Navarro would go down from a body shot inches above the belt line. It would be called a low blow by the ref and a point deducted from Pacquiao. In what turned out to be a 10-8 round for Navarro should have actually been the other way around.
Navarro’s eye began to swell from the jabs he was catching. Navarro would go down a total of 3 times in round 7 only to have the referee not count the first two knock downs. Frustrated that he was being told to get back up and continue fighting, Navarro would take more punishment from Pacquiao and eventually he took a knee and made a mockery of the sport as he counted along with referee.
The undercard:
Lightweight Danny Savala, 5-3-2-, 2 KO’s and Abraham Esquivel, 3-0, 1 KO let their hands go and took shots after shots from one another over 4 rounds. At the end of the 1st round, Savala was cut due to an accidental head butt. Esquivel would set a compubox record in power punches in a single round. He would also go on to win by unanimous decision on 2 of the 3 judges, 40-36 twice and 38-38. RSR scored it 39-37.
Middleweight Joilson Dos Santos, 11-2,10 KO’s fought a one sided battle against Danny Stanisavljeviv, 4-5-2, 2 KO’s and won at 2:18 by TKO in the 5th round at. Danny Z as he wants to be called had opportunities to pick up the pace and did not. Dos Santos out landed Danny Z in every round.
