By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. successfully defended his title on Saturday night in a 7th round stoppage win at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. The fight was far from an easy one for Chavez Jr. despite him getting the stoppage in the 7th when he blasted a tired Lee against the ropes until the referee halted the bout.

Chavez Jr. said after the bout “I could’ve knocked him out in the 1st round, but I had leg cramps so I waited.”

I seriously doubt that Chavez Jr. could have knocked Lee out had he jumped him in the 1st round and unloaded everything in his arsenal to try and get a stoppage. If Chavez Jr. went all out to try and get a KO in the 1st, I’d be willing to bet that Chavez Jr. would gas out and take a lot of punishment from Lee. As it is, Lee was ahead on the scorecards at the time of the stoppage, and that tells you something about Chavez Jr’s boxing skills.

Chavez Jr. and his trainer Freddie Roach obviously had studied Lee’s past fights and noted that he had problems taking pressure from his opponents. With Chavez Jr. being a lot heavier than Lee and a much better inside fighter, it made things easy for Chavez Jr. when he started pressuring Lee in a big way starting in the 4th round.

Chavez Jr. was able to walk through Lee’s jabs in order to punish him with body and head shots in close. Lee attempted to fight hard in the 5th round, but he came away worse for the wear. It was a mistake for the lighter Lee to fight Chavez Jr. in a toe-to-toe battle because he didn’t have the size or the chin to succeed with that kind of game plan. Lee’s trainer Emanuel Steward should have talked some sense into Lee to get him to try and box rather than just slugging it out with Chavez Jr.

In the 7th round, Chavez Jr. unloaded with a storm of shots that ended with referee Lawrence Cole stopping the fight at 2:21. At the time of the stoppage, Lee was ahead on all three cards 58-54.