One of the bouts at Saturday’s Top Rank Boxing event at Pechanga Arena now will be for the vacant World Boxing Organization interim welterweight world title.
An enthusiastic crowd including fighter teams gathered to cheer on athletes, including San Diegans Giovani Santillan and Jonny Mansour, as they stepped on the scale at Friday’s official weigh-in at the Mission Valley Hilton.
Hometown hero Santillan (32-0, 17 KOs) now will be fighting for bigger stakes in his welterweight division fight against Brian Norman Jr. of Conyers, Ga. (25-0, 19 KOs)
Current WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford has announced that he will be moving to the junior middleweight division, according to a letter from the WBO.
As a result, the sanctioning organization will put Saturday’s winner in a position to become the world champion later this summer, once Crawford’s move becomes official after his next scheduled fight on Aug. 3.
Santillan made weight at 146.4 pounds, and his opponent Norman Jr. did likewise at 146.5 pounds, under the 147-pound limit.
If Santillan wins, he will become only the second San Diego-born world champion in history, following Paul Vaden in 1995.
Norman Jr. acknowledged Santillan has the edge at home. “Everything is against me in this fight. But once again, this is where I shine the best. I thrive off of negativity. I love this opportunity. I love this moment.”
Monsour will make his professional debut in a four-round fight lightweight division fight against Anel Dudo (3-5, 1 KO) of Colorado, a native of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The event is headlined by a world lightweight championship featuring popular Mexican fighter Emanuel Navarrete (38-1-1, 31 KOs) facing Ukrainian boxer Denys Berinchyk (18-0, 9 KOs), fighting to win the vacant WBO World Lightweight title.
It will be Navarrete’s third appearance in San Diego since 2021.
Undercard fights begin at 3:30 p.m., with the main event and co-main fights starting at 7:30 p.m. The undercards air nationwide on ESPN+, and ESPN for the main and co-main events. Limited seats remain.