Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. The Best Light Heavyweight/Middleweight in Boxing?

Back in the mid-‘70s my old boxing trainer Bill Silva used to tell me that the great middleweight champion Carlos Monzon was the “Best Light Heavyweight/Middleweight in boxing.” What he meant was that Monzon was not a true middleweight. Bill told me that at weigh-ins King Carlos would hop on the scale, a paid off official would shout out “160 lbs” and Monzon would jump off the scale and guzzle down a drink before his opponent knew what had happened. With today’s training methods, various ways to rehydrate, and weight-ins taking place the day before the fight instead of the day of the fight, modern boxers don’t have to resort to such nefarious means to get the weight advantage on an opponent. That Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. has had weight issues has been well documented. My opinion is that as long as he can make the 160 pound middleweight limit he will be tough to beat. Under the tutelage of Freddie Roach, Chavez in the past year has exhibited an iron chin, stamina, and is just too big for the opponents he has faced thus far. On Saturday against Irishman Andy Lee all those advantages were on full display. After a slow first round where Lee was able to box using the right jab, Chavez began to crash through in the second round with rights and lefts to the head and debilitating body shots. Andy Lee fought back gamely, especially in the 5th round when he exchanged savage shots with Chavez. But every exchange took a little more out of Lee, and in the 7th round Chavez, Jr. finished Lee with a two fisted attack that left Lee defenseless against the ropes. In the post fight interview Lee admitted that,” I couldn't hold him off. He was too big and too strong." When asked about a potential middleweight unification bout between Sergio Martinez and Chavez, Jr., a fight which is now scheduled to take place Sept 15th, Lee said of Chavez, “He’s a big middleweight.” and “A hard fight for Sergio.” At 160 pounds Chavez, Jr. is a beast. If you had asked me a year ago I would have given Julio almost no chance against recognized middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. But considering that “Maravilla” Martinez is 37 years of age, relatively small by middleweight standards and Chavez has unofficially entered the ring as high as 181, you have to consider the real possibility that the good “big” man will beat the good “small” man come September.

A Reexamination of the Pacquiao-Bradley fight.

After 12 rounds of the Pacquiao-Bradley fight I had PacMan ahead 11 rounds to 1. My view of the fight was reinforced by the Twitter feeds I was getting by the likes of Dan Rafael and Michael Woods of ESPN and the HBO announce team, who throughout the fight was praising the work of Pacquiao. The HBO in-house official Harold Lederman had it a shutout through 9 rounds. Going into the fight I liked Pacquiao to win primarily because of Bradley’s poor performance against another southpaw named Joel Casamayor. I studied the fight and figured if Casamayor gave Bradley trouble with his southpaw style what would a hard puncher like Pacquiao do to him? Early in the fight Pacquiao seemed to establish his superior power. Bradley was game, but seemed to have no answer to the left cross of Manny Pacquiao. Manny was cracking left hands on Bradley’s head and Timothy could only answer with punches that seemed to have no effect. The fight appeared to me to be complete domination by Pacquiao. After the 12th round I told my friend Raider Rick, who was watching the fight with me, that "There will be no rematch here." When Michael Buffer started to read the scorecards I immediately knew it was a split decision based on the way he was announcing the scores. What the hell? When he announced the split decision for Bradley my head exploded. “No!!!!!” I Tweeted “Worst decision in boxing history!" My view was echoed by the rest of the Twitter world, or at least the ones I follow. “Worst decision I have ever seen” wrote Michael Woods. Dan Rafael had it 109-100 and wrote “I AM SHOCKED” and “Just a putrid decision." Jim Lampley of HBO said it was the worst scoring he had ever seen. So what happened? Were the judges completely incompetent, or worse, corrupt? Or had the boxing universe fell into some version of groupthink, and had we ridden the wave of a narrative of Pacquiao dominance and missed the work Timothy Bradley had put in? So I did the only thing a true boxing freak could do. To the replay! Watching the tape I soon realized I had missed some of the good work Bradley was doing. There were several close rounds in the fight. But in the end I thought the effective punches and ring generalship of Manny Pacquiao carried the day. Watching the fight again I came up with a 9-3 score for Pacquiao, only giving Bradley rounds 8-10-and 12. But was it the worst decision in boxing history? Probably not any worse than some other bad decisions like Erislandy Lara- Paul Williams, or Derek Chisora -Robert Helenius. A worthy study would be the effect Twitter and social media have on an individual’s perception of a fight, especially if one is checking other boxing fans or journalists reactions round by round during a boxing match.