Now, All Navarro Asks for Is a Fighting Chance

Tears welling, Jose Navarro grabbed the top turnbuckle and slumped in his corner.

The super flyweight from South Los Angeles was halfway across the globe in Tokyo and had just fought what he considered the fight of his life. But the thunderous applause filling Ariake Coliseum was for the house fighter, World Boxing Council 115-pound champion Katsushige Kawashima. No matter how bloodied and bruised Navarro had left him.

So although Navarro could not understand the ring announcer proclaiming Kawashima the winner by split decision, the crowd’s wild reaction was all he had to hear that cold, lonely night last Jan. 3.

“I went into shock right then,” Navarro said, reflecting on his first professional loss. “I couldn’t believe it so I kneeled down, trying to digest it.”

The feeling of helplessness followed him on his solitary walk to the dressing room, where waves of Japanese reporters rushed through the door.

“They just kept saying, ‘Robbery. You win, Navarro, you win,’ ” Navarro said. “I had been waiting for that moment all my life, winning the WBC title.

“Kawashima knows I won the fight.”

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Navarro is trying to get over that decision. And he’s trying to figure out why he, a U.S. Olympian from the 2000 Sydney Games, is flying below boxing’s radar, especially as he prepares for his first bout since the title fight, tonight’s off-again, on-again match in San Antonio against late replacement Valentin Leon (17-10-2, 8 knockouts).

Navarro, self-managed after his relationship with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions soured, and promoted by New Yorker Lou DiBella, is 21-1 and has held a multitude of minor titles. But the southpaw has only nine knockouts on his resume and his reactionary style has been denigrated as boring. Navarro has been booed at the Olympic Auditorium, despite putting on a boxing clinic in victory.

“People like big guys, they like mean knockouts,” he said. “Going out there and just being a counterpuncher, people don’t want to see that. Especially in a lower weight class.”

His longtime trainer, Frank Rivera, suggests that the 5-foot-5 1/2 Navarro is “thickening up and filling out,” and thus, beginning to generate power.

“He’s going to blow people away when he gets on TV,” Rivera said after a sparring session at the No Limits fighting gym in Irvine that was followed by a strength-and-conditioning workout at Bally’s in Mission Viejo.

“He’s a diamond in the rough, ready to explode.”

Hyperbole aside, Navarro acknowledges he needs to change his ring tactics. Then, he hopes, fame will follow.

“I’d rather give a great fight, a war, than to win a technical match, outbox a fighter,” he said. “I’d rather give the people what they want.”

After all, he doesn’t have an undefeated record to protect anymore.

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Navarro gave the lunging, wild-swinging Kawashima a steady diet of leather from his crisp right jab. And by the time the fight was over, Kawashima, who needed a doctor’s check before the sixth round, resembled a villain from a Dick Tracy comic strip -- badly swollen brow, deep cuts over both eyes and a bloody nose.

Navarro, meanwhile, looked as though he had finished a leisurely jog on the beach.

One judge, William Boodhoo, had Navarro winning 120-109, scoring every round for Navarro save the one he had even. But Gelasio Perez and Noppharat Sricharoen gave it to Kawashima, 115-114 and 115-113, infuriating Navarro’s camp.

“That fight was a setup ... an utter robbery,” said DiBella, who was not at the fight but watched it on tape.

“The politics of boxing really hurt this kid. He should be a world champion right now.”

DiBella said he threatened the WBC with a lawsuit. Navarro retained his No. 1 ranking and WBC President Jose Sulaiman sent him a letter, guaranteeing a rematch, of sorts.

Kawashima, who has never fought outside of Japan, will meet former champion Masamori Tokuyama for the third time July 18 in Osaka and Navarro will get the winner within 90 days, so long as he has no setbacks in the interim.

And although his purse of $100,000 for the title fight was a career high, Navarro still has to fight to make a living and a defeat in a “stay-busy” bout would be devastating.

“I go to gyms and people think I get paid millions,” Navarro said. “They’re like, ‘Where’s your Mercedes?’ No Mercedes here. I drive a Yukon. I drive a family car. I’m not living like people think.”

With his wife and 3-year-old daughter, he resides in Victorville, where the real estate dollar stretches further.

Driving daily to Orange County to train for a fight that was on and off several times had Navarro feeling sluggish in the second-longest inactive period of his career.

“I’ve pretty much overtrained,” said Navarro, who weighed 119 a week ago. “I’ve been peaking, then slowing down, peaking, then slowing down. In my mind, I got all messed up.

“I’m not the champion, but I shouldn’t be going through this anymore. I’m No. 1 in the world and I should be able to get fights.”

What he does know is that winning the WBC belt will solidify his future, since he sees his path taking him through the alphabet soup world of 115-pound champions -- the World Boxing Assn’s. Martin Castillo, the International Boxing Federation’s Luis Perez and the World Boxing Organization’s Fernando Montiel.

“I’ve worked hard, boxing ever since I was a little kid,” Navarro said. “My thing was always to become this famous boxer and great fighter.”