Although Omar Narvaez’s upcoming WBO bantamweight title fight against Zolani Tete was called off due to Tete suffering an injury during training, Narvaez will stay busy in preparation for his title shot.
Instead of fighting Tete in London, Narvaez will fight Venezuelan veteran Jesus Vargas on February 3 in Argentina. The fight will headline a five-fight card in Argentina and it is a rematch from their first encounter in 2016 when Narvaez dismantled Vargas in nine rounds.
Tete suffered a calf injury that prevented from properly preparing for a world title fight on February 10 at the Copper Box Arena. The fight was originally going to move forward with a likely main event featuring either Bradley Skeete or Anthony Yarde, but Skeete was not able to find a suitable opponent in time and Yarde was ill and taken off the card. This prompted promoter Frank Warren to cancel the entire card.
Since losing to Narvaez in 2016, Vargas has been busy, but not very successful. Vargas has lost seven of his last nine fights while Narvaez has won his last four fights since losing to current WBO super flyweight champion Naoya Inoue. During that four-fight win streak, Narvaez has captured both the WBO International and IBF Latino bantamweight titles.
Warren has yet to announce when and where the fight between Tete and Narvaez will take place. Narvaez last fought in October when he defeated Nikolai Potapov in a WBO bantamweight world title eliminator to secure the title shot against Tete.
