By Manuel Perez: Undefeated light welterweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez (37-0-1, 29 KOs) struggled badly to defeat American Matt Vanda (38-7, 21 KOs) by a 10-round split decision on Saturday night at the Palenque De La Expo, Hermosillo, in Sonora, Mexico. Not surprisingly, the Mexican crowd weren’t too happy with the decision, booing loudly and showing the ring with full bottles of water and coins. Most of the boxing fans felt, as I did, that Vanda had done enough to earn the decision in the last five rounds of the fight. The final judges’ scores were as follows 97-93, 100-90 for Chavez Jr. and 95-96 for Vanda. I also had the fight scored for Vanda by a close margin.
The other two scores given to Chavez Jr. were simply ridiculous, as he appeared to lose the last six rounds of the fight to the more active Vanda. To top off what should have been a victory, Vanda, 29, staggered Chavez Jr. in the 10th round and battered him around the ring during the final three minutes. After the fight, a badly exhausted Chavez Jr. had to sit down and recover, having not enough energy to remain standing.
In the meantime, the crowd looked concerned as Vanda bounced around the ring waiving his hand, appearing strong as if he could fight another two rounds easily. It looked bad, as if Chavez Jr. the younger fighter at 22 and the one that people would expect to be the stronger fighter in terms of endurance, was too tired to stand after the fight.
What made the close margins of victory even worse for Chavez Jr., however, was the fact that he’s ranked so high in the WBC light middleweight division at #5, and should have easily defeated Vanda, who’s no better than a C-level fighter at best. In point of fact, Vanda had lost four out of his last seven fights going into Saturday’s bout with Chavez Jr., and should have been soundly beaten if Chavez was as good as his inflated rankings would have you believe. However, this fight, along with Chavez Jr’s struggles against other C-quality fighters like Ray Sanchez and Jose Celaya, need to have the WBC rethink Chavez Jr’s high rankings. I doubt there will be any change in the rankings given his victory, but Chavez is pretty much doomed when he eventually is forced to fight a top 15 fighter. He’ll be destroyed by any of them, never mind against a champion quality fighter like Sergio Mora, Daniel Santos or Verno Phillips to name just a few of the champions.
Like in his previous fights, Chavez Jr. looked good in the early portion of the fight, landing well to the body and head with big hooks. His work rate seemed much improved over his last two fights in which he fought at a pedestrian pace, not throwing nearly enough punches to look impressive. It didn’t matter against his last two opponents, whom he was able to beat due to his bigger punches. In this fight, Chavez Jr. showed improvement at least in his work rate.
However, like in his previous fights, he had no defense against anything thrown at him, particularly right hands which seemed to fly around and through Chavez Jr’s outstretched gloves. I guess I should have had a bad feeling about the fight in the first round, when Vanda repeatedly tagged Chavez with right hands as if he were hitting a heavy bag instead of a highly ranked fighter with two gloves to protect himself. Chavez Jr. appeared to do enough in the last minute to win the first round, hitting Vanda with some excellent shots to the midsection, but it was much too close considering the quality of Chavez’s competition.
Chavez Jr. looked superb in rounds two through three, hitting Vanda with a steady diet of hooks to the head and body. In those rounds, Chavez Jr. looked similar to his famous father Julio Cesar Chavez, albeit slower, weaker, a poorer work rate, and much less aggressive than his father. He looked good if you ignored the right hands he was eating every once in awhile from Vanda. That kind of disturbed me, not because I didn’t think Chavez Jr. could take the shots, but mainly because I projected him into the future against a top fighter, and didn’t like his chances if he were to get hit like that against a top fighter.
For his part, Vanda didn’t have the power to really harm Chavez Jr. during the early going, even though he was snapping head back with some decent shots. They weren’t the type of big shots that would take out a fighter with a chin as good as Chavez Jr., but as the round went by they were definitely adding up, however.
In the 4th round, Vanda came on strong in the final minute of the round with a two-fisted attack to appear to take the round. Instead of boxing him, and using a jab to keep the shorter Vanda on the outside, Chavez Jr. continued to try and slug it out with him despite the fact that Chavez was starting to show signs of wearing down. It’s as if he only had one style of fighting and didn’t know what to do when that was no longer working.
At the same time, the crowd began to cheer for Vanda when he was landing his shots, perhaps because he seemed to be the one making the fight happen. He clearly was the underdog, and wasn’t expected to have much of a shot of beating Chavez Jr. going into the fight. With more loses than wins in his last seven fights, this was a bout that Vanda was expected to lose and lose big to Chavez Jr. However, things weren’t working out that way.
From rounds five through the tenth, Vanda completely took over the fight, chasing after Chavez Jr. and tagging him with powerful right and left hands to the head. It was if Chavez Jr. had hit the wall, now looking badly tired, and wasn’t able to fight hard for a full three minutes of every round like Vanda. As such, Vanda would batter Chavez Jr. in the first two minutes of the round, and then Chavez Jr. would come on in the last minute and try to steal the round with shoeshine punches at close range, the type Oscar De La Hoya would typically throw to win rounds.
However, at least De La Hoya would work hard the full three rounds and not just the final minute of the round. By the 8th round, Vanda was badly punishing Chavez Jr. with shots, backing him up constantly with combinations to the head during most of the time. There was nothing close about the last two rounds, the 9th and 10th, as Vanda teed-off on Chavez Jr. with big shots to the head, while Chavez Jr’s father Julio raced around the sides of the ring, pleading for him to throw combinations. Chavez Jr. would try, I’ll give him that, but he simply had nothing left in the tank and looked as if he were fighting a 20-round fight rather than just a 10-rounder. In the 10th round, Vanda staggered Chavez Jr. with a series of combinations to the head, causing his legs to go rubbery in the final minute. The round ended with Vanda tagging Chavez repeatedly with right hands to the head like he was pounding a piece of meat.
Immediately after the fight, Chavez Jr. wearily went back to his corner and had to sit down, looking as if he expected there to be an 11th round or something. In this case, he was just beaten and tired, and needed to sit down for a lengthy period of time. The media, the boxing fans in the audience and even the ring side girls, didn’t seem to understand what was wrong with him. This certainly isn’t how young contenders conduct themselves in the ring, not against lesser fighters, and not even against top grade ones.
They don’t want to show any weakness for a second, which is exactly what Chavez Jr. was showing by staying on his stool and not standing. This allowed Vanda to march around, waive to the crowd and pump his fist repeatedly, making him look like a champion. After the strange judges’ scores were announced, giving the beaten looking Chavez Jr. the victory, the Mexican crowd immediately began booing loudly and pelting everyone in the ring with bottles of water, coins, you name it, causing the fighters, ring card girls and trainers to have to run for cover.