Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Matt Vanda on July 12th

By Boxing News - 06/11/2008 - Comments

chavez9783354.jpgBy Manuel Perez: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (36-0-1, 29 KOs) will be making his toughest fight of his short career when he takes on Matt Vanda (38-6, 21 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout at the Monterrey, in Nuevo León, Mexico, on July 12th. Chavez Jr., 22, the son of the famous former boxing champion Julio Cesar Chavez, is hoping to get an impressive win against the 29 year-old Vanda. Chavez Jr., despite being the son of a former great, hasn’t looked good in quite some time in spite of his still unbeaten record.

Against C-class fighters like Ray Sanchez, Jose Celaya and Tobia Giuseppe Loriga, Chavez Jr. has had to work especially hard to pull out victories, getting hit often and appearing slow. His boxing fans have been quick to point out that he’s only 22, that he’s had virtually no amateur boxing career to speak of before turning and that he’s only now learning how to properly fight. However, Chavez Jr. seems to be missing something in a lot of areas at once, starting with his low punch output problem. That factor in itself has been a problem that’s plagued him constantly in his last three fights, in which he would stand around and wait for too long before letting his hands ago.

When he does punch, Chavez Jr. often has good results, as he has excellent power in either hand and is especially ferocious in regards to his body attacks. Unfortunately for him, he holds off on his punches, as if he’s worried about tiring out or something, and allows his rather poor opposition to tee-off on him with great regularity. It doesn’t help his case that his opponents, fighters that will never be a contender much less a champion, are fighting with a tremendous amount of excitement. Because for them, this is the biggest fight of their lives, the one big fight that will put a cap on their entire boxing careers.

Naturally, they’re out to give their all and are fighting as hard as they can to pull off an upset. In Chavez Jr’s case, he often looks almost bored in there with his outclassed opponents, showing no emotion on his face and looking like he’s sleepwalking through the bouts. Even when he was struggling and looking his worse against Celaya and Sanchez early in the fights, Chavez Jr. changed his expression or even stepped up his attacks on them. I can’t spell out what his issue is, perhaps motivation or the lack of a killer instinct, but whatever the case is, Chavez Jr. is going to need to find out quickly when he starts to step it up a level in competition.

Vanda, however, won’t be too much of a problem for Chavez Jr., because he doesn’t have much of a punch to worry him all that much and his work rate – slow and methodical – is about as poor as Chavez Jr’s . Vanda can take a good punch, meaning that he might stick around the entire fight and give Chavez Jr. the some problems late in the fight. Against Sebastien Demers, who defeated Vanda by a 12-round unanimous decision in April, Vanda rocked him on a couple of occasions late in the fight with hard flurries. However, Vanda almost immediately shut down after throwing his fireworks, which allowed Demers to escape the rounds without too much trouble.

Chavez Jr. is going to have to start stepping it up and begin showing something more than he’s had in his recent fights, because he doesn’t appear to be progressing as a fighter. Just the opposite seems to be occurring, unfortunately, with him appearing to be regressing as a fighter. His punch output used to be good in his early fights, in which we could count on seeing him throwing 50-80 punches per rounds. That’s not the case now, I hate to say. Chavez Jr. is lucky to average approximately 20-30 shots per round, while taking many more than that from his unskilled opponents.

Like I said, it hasn’t been a big problem for him yet, since he’s still facing mostly journeyman fighters, but once he goes up against someone that can take his occasional big shots, he’d going to lose and lose big. One would hope that his father corrects his problems well before he gets to that stage. I’d like to think that he will, but given the fact that Chavez Jr. has looked basically unchanged in his last three fights, all poor performances, I’m tending to think he’s about as good as he’ll ever be.



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