By Allan Fox: Former 3 division world champion Julio Cesar Chavez (107-6-2, 86 KOs) says he would have beaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (50-0, 26 KOs) by a knockout if he’d fought him while he was in the prime of his career.
Chavez says Mayweather has done little more than hand pick his opponents during his boxing career, and never fighting the best. Chavez states that Mayweather always looked to gain the advantage against his opponents by doing things like fighting at home in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Chavez fought many the best fighters in boxing over his 25-year pro career. Chavez didn’t taste defeat until he was no longer in his prime at age 32-years-old, which is young for some fighters, but it wasn’t young for him. By the time Chavez was in his early 30s, he was no longer the fighter that he once was during his best years.
“I was undefeated in 89 fights, fought 37 champions, had 37 world title fights,” said Chavez to ES News Reporting. “I always fought the best. Not him [Mayweather]. He chooses his opponents, and it will continue to be that way, but that’s the boxing era we are in. So, we have to respect it. People pay to see him fight. So why should he care. He can retire undefeated because he’s never fought the best. He always chose his opponents, always fights in Las Vegas; he has everything in his favor,” said Chavez about Mayweather.
Mayweather would have had to use a lot of movement and speedy shots to try and fend off a prime Chavez. I would have been tough on Mayweather, because he struggled badly against pressure fighters during his career. Jose Luis Castillo, Miguel Cotto and Marcos Maidana gave Mayweather a lot of problems with their pressure.
Chavez was a better inside fighter than all three of those guys, and was better at close range that Saul Canelo Alvarez. If there was a fight that Mayweather could have lost to it’s the fight with Canelo. The Mexican fighter chose not to use his size and power to pressure Mayweather. Instead, Canelo boxed Mayweather for most of the fight, and failed to use his assets to his advantage.
”I think I wouldn’t have beaten him in my peak, because I was a fighter that would apply relentless pressure, tacking the body, the head, the body, and by the 12th round, I would have knocked him out,” said Chavez.
These are the top fighters Chavez fought during his career:
• Frankie Randall
• Hector “Macho” Camacho
• Oscar De La Hoya
• Meldrick Taylor
• Joey Gamache
• Kostya Tszyu
• David Kamau
• Terrence Ali
• Frankie Mitchell
• Lonnie Smith
• Angel Hernandez
• John Duplessis
• Jose Luis Ramirez
• Roger Mayweather
• Edwin Rosario
• Juan Laporte
• Rocky Lockridge
• Jeff Bumpus
• Ruben Castillo
It would have been a very hard fight for Mayweather to hang with Chavez if the two of them had fought each other in the prime of their careers. Meldrick Taylor was a guy with Mayweather like boxing skills, and Chavez knocked him out in the 12h round in 1990. Chavez knocked Taylor out again in their rematch 3 years later in the 8th round in 1994.
One fighter that is said to have patterned his fighting style after Chavez is Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Chavez doesn’t agree that Golovkin fights anything like him.
“Golovkin is still in the Eastern European style, and still unable to perform like I used to,” said Chavez.
