By Jordan Capobianco: It wasn’t as decisive as you might think. Everyone knew what the deal was for Andy Lee: He needed to keep Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to the outside, prevent Chavez Jr. from leaning on him, throw good, sharp jabs, and follow up the jabs with heavy punches.
When Chavez Jr. tried to duck down and get in close, Lee should have smacked him for his trouble, and followed up with a combination. When Lee found himself against the ropes or in the corner, he should have used lateral motion and jabs to get back into the open ring where he could maintain distance.
Being a challenger has that advantage. The only goal is winning the belt.
Being a champion, on the other hand, is quite a different thing. For Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., this fight was about more than keeping the title around his waist. There were longstanding questions about his championship. Chavez Jr., after all, wasn’t fighting Sergio Martinez. He wasn’t fighting Gennady Golovkin or Dmitry Pirog. He wasn’t fighting in a higher weight class, as many say he should, against the likes of Lucian Bute, Carl Froch, or Andre Ward in Super Middleweight. Chavez Jr. not only needed to win: He needed to prove that the recipe for his defeat which had been prescribed to Andy Lee wouldn’t work.
He didn’t.
For the first couple of rounds, it seemed like Lee was doing what everyone knew he needed to. He bashed Chavez Jr. several times as Chavez Jr. tried to get into Lee’s personal space. He used effective combinations and frequently kept it to the outside. Even HBO’s Chavez-centric announcers started saying Chavez Jr. was getting tired. Lee won at least 2 of the first three rounds.
But as the fourth began, Lee’s discipline left him. Despite the in-ring pleadings of Emmanuel Steward to box, Lee chose to brawl. Lee chose to be head-to-head, toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest with the bigger fighter. And Chavez Jr. systematically tore Lee down. After the fourth round, Lee landed few punches, and none that went unanswered. When the fight was stopped in the 7th, Lee had lost perhaps more convincingly than Chavez Jr. had won. Lee’s punches had nothing behind them and Chavez Jr. was landing shots at will. Lee’s face was bruised and cut; Chavez Jr.’s face was unmarked. The only reason Lee didn’t fall is because the referee rightly stopped the fight before he could.
Which is all good news for Chavez Jr. Necessary news, given the longstanding questions about his validity as champion.
But few of those questions were answered by this fight. We know that Chavez Jr. can stay in shape, but we only know it provided he has Freddy Roach in his corner. We know Chavez Jr. can be motivated to win, but only provided he has his legendary father in his corner. We know Chavez Jr. can win, but only provided he remains an over-sized middleweight taking on B-list competition. And we continue to know exactly how Chavez Jr. can be beaten, and why he doesn’t fight anyone competent enough to execute that game-plan.
This fight means that Chavez Jr. will remain champion for the moment. Nothing more. More than anything else, the outcome was a testament to why Freddy Roach and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. are in the Hall of Fame.
Hardly a decisive victory for the “champion.”
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