By Norm Frauenheim-
TUCSON – Isaac Dogboe, whose African ancestry is at the root of his Royal Storm nickname, is learning kings don’t last long. They are only targets for ambitious challengers and always vulnerable to unexpected trouble, often self-imposed.
At 24, Dogboe returns to Arizona, still a crown prince coming off his first real lesson in what it is to be an ex-king, a former champion. That ex, he vows, will be gone Saturday night at Tucson Arena.
He intends to eliminate the temporary and restore the current in a rematch of his first defeat, administered thoroughly by a tough and skilled Emanuel Navarette last December.
The loss of Dogboe’s World Boxing Organization’s junior-featherweight title was a stunner for anybody who saw his abundant energy, charisma and power overwhelm Hidenori Otake in a first-round stoppage at Glendale, Ariz., last August.
Then, it looked as if a long reign had begun.
In December, however, it was abruptly ended by Navarette.
Dogboe’s scorecard loss was – and has been – a sobering lesson.
“A quiet humiliation,’’ Dogboe said before a media workout this week in a gym a few miles of desert south of a fabled arena where Sugar Ray Leonard, Salvador Sanchez, George Foreman, Michael Carbajal and Alexis Arguello have fought. Legends have won and lost there. It’s a place where Dogboe hopes to hit the restart button on what he foresees as his own legend.
It’s intriguing, because it won’t be easy. Navrette is the bigger fighter. Much bigger. He has a five-inch advantage in height and one-inch edge in reach. When they pose in the ritual face-off at Friday’s weigh-in, Dogboe will still be looking up at him. But that significant tale on the tape does not add up to the reason Dogboe sees for his only defeat. He sees himself. And five months later he sees a different fighter than the one who lost a unanimous decision at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
“I wasn’t prepared,’’ said Dogboe, whose bout is the first of two rematches on an ESPN telecast (10 pm ET) that will also feature Miguel Berchelt-Francisco Vargas in a junior-lightweight sequel to Berchelt’s 11th-round stoppage in 2017. “Weight was a problem. I had to sit in the sauna and sweat. I just wasn’t myself.’’
There were disruptions – Royal disruptions. Dogboe (20-1, 14 KOs) said he interrupted his training in early November for a chance to meet Prince Charles and Camilla in Accra in his native Ghana. The Royals met on Nov. 3. About a month later – Dec. 8, Navarette beat him. It’s no surprise that Navarette (26-1,22 KOs), of Mexico City, says he’ll do it again.
“The pressure is on him,’’ Navarette said. “If he feels it, I’ll knock him out this time.’’
Navarette had the WBO belt he took from Dogboe slung across one shoulder as he spoke to media and fans from a corner of the old gym in an industrial section of Tucson. When it was Dogboe’s turn in the ring, he seemed to spot Navarette and the belt, the symbolic crown the young prince once had. Dogboe suddenly looked energized. He hit his trainer’s mitts with a power that echoed throughout a place often rocked by fighter jets at nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. For that moment, however, all you could hear was Dogboe’s hands pounding out what sounded like a message from a fighter on his own mission.
“This is about redemption for me,’’ Dogboe said. “I’m ready to go to war.’’
