Despite the fact Argentina has historically been a notable boxing country, it's on a real high at the moment with a number of world champions and top contenders. One of the top Argentinian fighters, the WBO Super Flyweight champion, Omar Andres Narvaez (36-1-2, 19) looks to make the fifth defense of his title as he faces Mexican Johnny Garcia (16-3-1, 8).
At 37 years old Narvaez is coming to the twilight years of his exceptional career which has seen him become a 2-weight world champion and a fighter who has reigned at the top for almost a decade despite staying in relative obscurity.
Sadly most boxing fans who have seen Narvaez have only seen his fight with Donaire, a mismatch from the offer in which Narvaez clearly spent more time trying to survive against a fighter who was simply too big and too strong. Against men of a similar natural size to himself however, Narvaez is something special with tricky defense, fast hands and some lovely combinations that he rattles off over and over despite his advanced age.
Narvaez first made his name as an amateur and actually appeared in both the 1996 and 2000 Olympics before turning professional in 2000. Within 2 years of his professional debut Narvaez had already claimed his first professional title (the WBO Flyweight title) by defeating Adonis Rivas. As the Flyweight champion Narvaez made 16 title defenses and defeated the likes of Luis Alberto Lazarte, Andrea Sarritzu, Bernard Inom, Brahim Asloum and Carlos Tamara before giving up the title in 2009 and moving up to Super Flyweight looking for a challenge.
After moving to Super Flyweight Narvaez swiftly won the WBO title as he defeated Everth Briceno and followed that up with 3 title defenses before his loss to Donaire. Following the loss to Donaire, Narvaez has fought once, defending his title once more by defeating Jose Cabrera.
Despite the claims of Steve Lillis (prior to the Donaire fight), Narvaez has surprisingly fought around the world with fights in Italy, France and Spain as well as the Donaire fight (in America), however this will be his 33rd fight in his native homeland of Argentina, a country in which he is 31-0-1 and 16-0 in title fights.
The challenger for the title, 23 year old Johnny Garcia, is seen as huge betting under-dog and with good reason, and not just because Narvaez is extremely talented. Sadly for Garcia he's really up against it because he himself is unproven at this level.
Garcia made his professional debut back in 2007 when he was just an 18 year old kid. Sadly for Garcia his career started slowly as his record swiftly fell to 3-2-1 after just 14 months. Since then however Garcia has really gotten his career going and has gone 13-1 over the last 4 years.
Not only has Garcia been on an excellent run of results over the past 4 years but he has also been scoring notable victories including wins over Jesus Ruiz, William Urina and most recently Manuel Vargas. The only loss in that time came at the hands of the very highly regarded Carlos Cuadras who stopped Garcia in 2 rounds a little over a year ago.
In terms of pure technique Garcia is quite raw and very aggressively minded however it'd by harsh to flat out call him crude as he does seem to have some technical skills in his arsenal. Sadly, on a technical basis he can't hope to match Narvaez, however in terms of brute power he'll feel that he's easily the more powerful man, and is certainly the younger, more energetic man. Despite the youth, it's fair to say that Narvaez is probably the faster fighter however.
Personally whilst I think Narvaez has slipped a fair bit he is still a fighter who is amongst the top guys in his division and whilst Garcia may have his moments, especially if he starts fast, he won't have enough of the to win a decision. I'd go with Narvaez by a clear decision, I don't think he'll manage to really hurt Garcia too badly but I'd be shocked if Garcia manages to win more than 3 rounds.
Prediction-Narvaez by unanimous decision
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