Rolando Navarrete vs. Chung-il Choi - IB's standalone RBR scorecard

Bad Boy from Dadiangas" versus "the Piston of Busan".

Featured as part of the "1982/best year ever" theme in @George Crowcroft's "fight of the week #29". I'll copy my scores in there when done, but generating this à la carte for my own (ridiculously ocd) cataloging purposes.

Filipino vs. South Korean, for the 130lb green belt. They would both have kayo losses at the hands of Rafael "Bazooka" Limón awaiting them later in the year. Choi, just three years on the job, had never fought outside his peninsular home, nor at even near this level. Navarrete had been kicking around for nearly a decade before hitting stride in the late seventies, repelled by Flaco Explosivo in '80 but would come again for the belt in '81 and snatch it from Boza-Edwards.

*knuckle-crack*, alright, then, let's have a go.

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Rolando Navarrete vs. Chung-il Choi, 15 rounds @ super featherweight

 

Okay, what is this delay with the glove tape? Silliness.

 

Round 1

Navarrete is bouncing along, counter-clockwise, getting a feel out and calibrating his rhythm with the right jab - but Choi begins with the disruptions straight away, imposing his considerable height advantage behind the aggressive left jab, not content to let Navarrete simply weave & writhe between the first couple and call it day, persisting until he connects on the face of the champion, and following with a hard right cross as soon as his synapses register impact. Really great offensive instincts being shown here by Choi. Navarrete seems a bit stunned (figuratively and literally). He nervously hops in place after escaping from a barrage in the corner, and tries playing it cool in the final seconds with a few right jabs stepping halfway inside, as though not fazed by the previous (and quite hairy) few minutes.

10-9 Choi

 

Round 2

Navarrete seems far more comfortable now with a scouting report in hand (painful and scary as obtaining it may have been). The champ is now boxing quite beautifully, realizing that most of Choi's punches are very straight, and finding success by always wobbling off the center axis before delivering quick dagger-like southpaw jabs and lefts into the chin with a slight curve on them, doing what years later, in drag-racing (or at least in cinematic depictions of it) would be termed a "Tokyo drift". Choi seems infuriated that Navarrete has taken initiative and hurls some mighty bombs at him, but it only serves to get him clouted and sent packing as Navarrete times him on the inside with an upward-driving corkscrew left.

10-9 Navarrete

19-19

 

Round 3

Navarrete is cracked upon answering the bell with several rights before he can get off a single blow. Choi a dervish, but Navarrete is hip to his ways now, unlike the 1st, and quickly settles things down with some crisp right jabs and lateral movement. Choi left stabbing into the shadows, having to rethink his approach. Choi ropes out some lead rights but Navarrete has plenty of reaction time, and permits none to land square. Navarrete really doing a number on Choi at range with the jab, and leaps in past a right hand to rattle a few light claps against his chest. BIG one-twos pumped out by Choi, a lot of self-belief in these combos but Navarrete too mercurial for him.

10-9 Navarrete

29-28 Navarrete

 

Round 4

Navarrete starts out where he left off, jabbing and bobble-footing around, in pogo-stick mode. Choi with some vaguely aimed jabs and unconvincing looped rights from afar in the first minute, but those misses early on could have been a ruse as he's slowly learning Navarrete's habits, and grows closer to mark, timing him with jab-right-jab sequences high on the head, skipping over his guard. Navarrete begins to duck when Choi opens up, but to little avail, half the shots are still finding him. BIG right hand by Choi, but Navarrete was able to ride it by dipping rightward & downward at the waist and simultaneously taking a swipe at the body of Choi with a right upper-hook counter. If that had landed flush, we might not be scoring a round 5..

10-9 Choi

38 all

 

Round 5

Navarrete is now locked in step with Choi at ring center, eating his left jab perhaps unwillingly but not daring to alter the pattern as things stand, as Choi holds the right hand loaded threateningly by his jaw. A sense of the National Geographic nature doc here, with Navarrete the prey transfixed by its would-be consumer, knowing it could maybe just about escape with a burst of speed but finding the will to even risk it too ephemeral to seize onto. You realize you're in the spider's web, don't you boy? If you don't move, something is going to happen - and so it does. Choi, after peppering him with jabs and rights for the better part of two minutes, ratchets up the intensity and causes Navarrete to buckle, splayed with his buttocks turned outward and his limbs akimbo. Navarrete manages to right the ship, but only staves off the inevitable momentarily, as Choi bears down upon him with more fierce thrusting compounds, and down submissively on all fours he goes, only for his bacon (and super featherweight championship) to be saved by the bell.

10-8 Choi

48-46 Choi

 

Round 6

Navarrete is sick of getting beaten up, so he remembers that he also possesses two fists (and, more importantly, a very quick pair of legs) to keep him in this contest. For all his efforts, and in fairness he is throwing a ton, Choi sees that hard-earned momentum slip from his grasp as Navarrete begins to duck and weave in close and shove a high right jab into his nose, then curl into a tight armadillo ball and roll his way in with right hooks downstairs and kamikaze lefts up top. Choi drills the right hand down at every opportunity, hoping something will stick, but Navarrete is dialed in defensively and putting the craft of "wade into the lion's den/hippopotamus' shallows and leave without a single bite mark" (aka hit and don't get hit, if you're into vanilla platitudes) on display, only taking oblique incidental contact on the body.

10-9 Navarrete, really nice bounce-back after two very poor rounds for him on the spin

57-56 Choi

 

Round 7

Navarrete is now almost showing off, taking extra little sidesteps and putting a little cutesy flourish on his stopping & reversal of direction after making Choi lurch at his circuitous trail of phantoms. Navarrete starting to really make you wonder if he in fact can have the serious hurting of Choi, something unthinkable a few rounds ago. Really clean southpaw 1-2s getting through from sneaky angles, followed by short, effective right hooks into the ribs. Choi battling mightily on the backfoot, launching full-power right hands, but this isn't his forte, and his balance is shaky at best when not the man coming forward, and thus Navarrete is able to clean his clock while the springs of his own remain nice & funky.

10-9 Navarrete

66 all

 

Round 8

Navarrete is feeling his oats something awful now, taking big chances, running in with his guard lowered and whacking Choi's broadside with that right hook. Getting a mite greedy, he is. Choi patiently coiled, ready to strike the moment Navarrete slips up - and, Homer nods, he does eventually have a miscue of footwork allowing Choi to slam home with the 1-2. Navarrete shakes it off and resumes hopping in place and flitting about, leaping in with jabs and lefts up top and then slashing low with the right hook. Mind the sun, Icarus. Choi begins to POUND him with rights, and Navarrete takes several without making reply against the ropes before the ref insinuates himself between them, as neither heard the bell.

10-9 Choi

76-75 Choi

 

Round 9

Navarrete is rising up on his tiptoes, attempting to make himself appear larger to assert himself as the alpha, the way you see undersized canines do in their skirmishes for supremacy with the bigger dogs. Navarrete seems bent on faking it until he makes it, remaining "extra tall" while jabbing in on Choi, and deftly soft-footing around the Korean's lead rights. Navarrete is able to make some headway battering the body of Choi on the inside, and creating more openings for himself to unload with quick head shots in succession before tying up or jumping outside and resetting, either way denying Choi any latitude for vengeance.

10-9 Navarrete

85-85

 

Round 10

Navarrete is waving Choi onward cheekily as the challenger starts to rage-spam his right hand coming in. Navarrete has got his mojo working, able to duck and counter every time Choi reaches for him. Big right hooks on the body and lefts up top for Navarrete. They clinch and Choi scores his biggest punch of the round, a near kidney shot on the break. No penalty, ref letting them duke it out (actually has done a fine job not getting himself involved all throughout, worth mentioning). Navarrete plays a little possum now, beaching himself on the ropes and ducking in place with his gloves up to absorb Choi's right hands. A bit of rope-a-dope. VERY dangerous stuff here; a few of Choi's rights are getting through enough to visibly shake up Navarrete despite being mostly blocked. The plan does ultimately pay off, though, as Choi gets randy for more and comes barging in, gloves flying recklessly, and is hurt with a right hook & left hand combo as Navarrete surges off the ropes! Great finishing instincts here by Navarrete, putting his boot down on Choi's throat, more right hooks and lefts - and DOWN GOES CHOI! Much like Navarrete was earlier, he is definitively saved by the bell.

10-8 Navarrete

95-93 Navarrete

 

Round 11

Navarrete is up on my card, but could just as well have been down, given a couple of close ones, and he seems to not be keen to go another five with this bruiser, or leave his chances of retention up to a panel of judges. Navarrete is stalking now, lots of head movement, pestering Choi with the right jab and then hooking off it with a fury, sending big gusts of wind if not leather into Choi's face. Choi for his part is swinging madly, Casey at the bat, Navarrete punishing him for each wrong move with increasingly vicious right hooks to body and head. Left hand lead staggers Choi, frozen just for a fatal moment, and Navarrete gets in a flush right hook on the chin, sending the Korean to his doom.

TKO11!!!

 

This was quite a thing.