Emanuel Navarrete vs. O’Shaquie Foster officially announced

Derren Austin
2 Sep 2026

Foster vs. Navarrete made official.

The best possible fight at the world level of the super-featherweight division has officially been made. Former super-bantamweight, featherweight, and two-time super-featherweight champion Emanuel Navarrete (40-2-1 (1), 33 KOs) will be throwing down with two-time 130-pound titleholder O’Shaquie Foster (25-3, 12 KOs).

While Mexico’s Navarrete has been a consistent force at the world level since he beat Isaac Dogboe to win the WBO title at 122 pounds in 2018, the United States’s Foster came out of almost nowhere to defeat unbeaten two-weight world champion Rey Vargas to win the WBC super-featherweight strap in 2023.

Foster would then make a couple of defences (including a very exciting one against Eduardo Hernández) before very controversially losing to Robson Conceicao.

Since beating Conceicao in a rematch, though, Foster has gone up to lightweight to win the WBC interim title against Stephen Fulton, then gone back down to defend his world championship against Raymond Ford.

The American will be taking the WBC super-featherweight title into his fight against Navarrete, who holds the WBO and IBF championships.

After a series of performances that included a loss up at lightweight to Denys Berinchyk for the vacant WBO title, many thought Navarrete was slowing down. However, a dominant super-featherweight title defence in his rematch against Óscar Valdez made people reconsider that idea.

A controversial win (later changed to a no-contest) against Charly Suarez last year then convinced many that Navarrete really was declining, but he would convince many otherwise when he dominated hard-hitting IBF champion Eduardo Núñez earlier this year.

And so, Foster and Navarrete will be colliding to decide who the best in their division really is when they meet on the 24th of October at the Frost Bank Centre in San Antonio, Texas, United States.

And since their matchup is to decide the best in class, The Ring title will also be on the line.

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