Zolani Tete and Omar Narvaez agree to February showdown

Narvaez is Tete’s mandatory for his WBO belt

Well, so much for that unification fight.

Eddie Hearn recently shot down the possibility of a bout between IBF/WBA Super bantamweight champ Ryan Burnett and WBO champ Zolani Tete, at least for the near future. Instead, Tete has signed on to face mandatory challenger Omar Narvaez, presumably on a February date in London.

Tete’s promoter, Frank Warren, thinks Hearn is full of it.

Tete (26-3, 21 KO) stopped Siboniso Gonya in just eleven seconds last month, sleeping him with the very first punch of the fight. His skills, power, and height (5’9”, which is downright towering for 118) have made it difficult for him to find top-shelf competition ever since he wrecked Paul Butler in 2015.

Enter Narvaez (47-2-2, 25 KO), who is 4-0 since a knockout loss to Naoya Inoue and recently forced unbeaten Nikolai Potapov to quit in seven. To get an idea of his skills, he’s 42 years old and still a top fighter in a low weight class.

Tete looks like a monster, though, and Narvaez will be giving up almost seven inches of height. For his sake, I hope those skills still pay the bills.