Chavez Jr. expects to be better against Vera in rematch

By Boxing News - 02/20/2014 - Comments

chavez8888(Rafael Soto/Top Rank) By Dan Ambrose: After struggling to a controversial 10 round unanimous decision win over Brian Vera (23-7, 14 KO’s) in a fight that pretty much the entire world saw him losing, former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (47-1-1. 32 KO’s) is vowing to come into the rematch in shape, on weight and ready to fight for three minutes of every round in their rematch on March 1st at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

The fact that Chavez Jr. was given the decision in the first place wasn’t all that surprising because he’s had things his way during his career in all of the fights that were close. However, this fight wasn’t close, as Vera appeared to have beaten Chavez Jr. by a clear cut decision. The fight result just showed how tough it can be to get a decision win over the son of the legend Julio Cesar Chavez unless you totally dominate him the way that Sergio Martinez did two years ago.

In their fight last year, Chavez Jr. couldn’t make the 168 lb weight limit, so the weight was raised to 173 lb to accommodate him. So what we had in this fight was Chavez Jr. weighing in as a light heavyweight fighting a middleweight in a 10 round bout. Why Chavez Jr. simply didn’t cancel the fight and take on a legitimate light heavyweight is the real question. It would have been a lot more fair had he face someone like Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson rather than a middleweight.

“I will make the 168 pound limit with no problem and I will be able to do the things I could not do in first fight,” Chavez Jr. said. “I will have better movement, I will be more consistent and I will fight 12 hard rounds if that is what it takes to win this second fight. Vera is a tough guy with a good chin, but I will do my best to send him home early.”

To Chavez Jr’s credit, he does appear to have lost a lot of weight in training for his rematch with Vera, but he’s kind of in a situation where he has little choice but to do that. Vera isn’t even considered one of the top 5 middleweights in the division, so it looks incredibly bad that Vera is being dragged up from the 160 lb division to fight Chavez Jr. in the 168 lb division instead of Chavez Jr. fighting someone from his own division like Andre Ward or Carl Froch.



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