Australian super featherweight contender Liam ‘Mr Damage’ Wilson 11-2 (7) is still seething at the treatment he received before and during his ill-fated attempt to win the vacant WBO world title against former two-division champion Emanuel ‘Vaquero’ Navarrete 37-1 (31) at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona on Friday night.
The 26-year-old from Caboolture in Queensland dropped Mexico’s Navarrete, 28, hard in the fourth round, but there was a 27-second delay between the moment when the house fighter hit the canvas and the bout was allowed to continue.
This was largely due Navarrete spitting out his mouthpiece after the knockdown and referee Chris Flores fumbling to get it back in his mouth.
“There was a lot of fiddling around, buying time,” Wilson told reporters on Sunday. “He picked the mouthguard off the ground after he spat it out and he put it in the fighter’s mouth upside down. Just fiddling around. There’s another 10 seconds there.
“It’s enough to get your composure back and at least finish off the round. It cost me time as well because I could have got in there.
“Fair play to him. I think his corner was in his ear. I think he looked at his corner and they told him to spit it out. I think he was in a world of trouble.
“When he got dropped he was trying to grab the rope and he wasn’t anywhere near the rope. I feel like the ref was on his side because he put the mouthguard in upside down.
“It is what it is. You have to do what you have to do to win.
“If the count was nice and smooth and quick, it would have been another 20 odd seconds.
“It kills me because in that moment I was so close to becoming world champion.
“I really think I was one punch away from ending the fight. He was already in a pretty bad state and you’re one punch away from it being all over.”
Wilson continued his attack in the fifth and sixth rounds but began to fatigue in the second half of the bout, eventually going down from a right hand in the ninth round. The follow-up barrage from Navarrete was enough to referee Flores to step in and halt the contest.
“He didn’t mind stopping the fight for me. But when it was the other way around, there was well and truly more than eight seconds given to Navarrete,” Wilson continued.
“It’s all good to say I was hurt but it shouldn’t have got there because I hurt him.”
“I knew I was definitely up against it from the get go. Obviously that really prolonged count, that’s when I knew I had more than just a fight in front of me.”
The drama started a day before the first bell when Wilson weighed in at 126.3-pounds while Navarrete, who was moving up a division, scaled 129.2-pounds. Wilson made his pro debut at junior welterweight five years ago and has since campaigned at lightweight and super featherweight ever since.
Team Wilson believe the scales were tampered with before they weighed in.
“I’ve got the officials, the weigh-in situation and the long count when I dropped him. I knew there was more than a fight on my hands,” Wilson said.
“It was pretty blatantly evident they were against me. They wanted to make the Navarrete vs Oscar Valdez fight. They had a date scheduled for it in May or June, so they were looking past me from the get go.
“After the scales situation, I knew they were out to sort of get me. They obviously did something there.
“(I) got to the fight, I’ve dropped him and they weasled their way out of that one as well.
“I don’t want to be that guy that gets on camera and sounds like a sore loser, but it’s when the thing I’ve been working hard for for 17 years just got taken away from me by some guy who probably hasn’t had frickin’ boxing gloves on in his life.”
