(Photo Credit: HBO/Ed Mulholland) By Allan Fox: It seems that it’s not Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s fault that he couldn’t make the agreed upon 168 lb. weight for his fight tonight against Brian Vera (23-6, 14 KO’s).
According to Chavez Jr’s manager Billy Keane, Chavez Jr. worked hard in training but his body wouldn’t allow him to get down to the 168 pound weigh-in limit. For that reason, the weight limit had to be moved up to 173 lbs., which Chavez Jr. made yesterday in coming in at a very thin looking 172.4 lbs.
Keane said to AP “He [Chavez Jr] put in the work for this fight. His body just wouldn’t respond.”
That’s one of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that Chavez Jr. might not have kept himself in shape during his 12 months out of the ring after his loss to Sergio Martinez last year in September.
Chavez Jr. really let his weight get out of hand during his year off from boxing, because 3 months ago, he looked huge with a pot belly that protruded out in front of him.
There’s no telling how heavy Chavez Jr. got in year off, but he looked like he was much too heavy to take that kind of weight off in just 3 months.
It’s a credit to Chavez Jr. that he was able to get down to 172.4 so quickly, but he needed more time for him to get down further. Chavez Jr. could have made 168 or even 160 if he had started training 2 months earlier than he did.
Chavez Jr. was at his Brother Omar Chavez’s fight on July 6th, and he still looked huge at that time with a pot belly. Chavez Jr. could have taken off all the weight, but he needed to increase his training camp by two months for him to do that.
If Chavez Jr. is going to continue to let his weight balloon up in between fights, he’s going to either have to move up to the light heavyweight division or he’s going to need to lengthen his training camps to turn them into fat farms to spend the first three-fourths of the camp as a fat farm and then the last quarter to work on boxing.
Chavez Jr. can’t take off massive amounts of weight in just 2-3 months. It’s not possible to take off the kind of blubber that Chavez Jr. puts on in such a short time.
Vera will have a lot of problems dealing with Chavez Jr’s size advantage in the first 8 rounds of this fight.
If Vera tries to slug with Chavez Jr. during that part of the fight, he’s going to get knocked out for sure. The only chance that Vera has of winning this fight is to stay on the move for the first 8 rounds, and then go after what will likely be a tired Chavez Jr. in the last 4 rounds of the fight to see if he can either stop him or win a close decision.
It’s not probable that Vera will win a decision by moving for the first 8 rounds, but that’s his best chance of staying upright in this fight. Vera can’t trade with Chavez Jr. because he’ll likely be at least 20 pounds lighter than him tonight, and that’s too small to be exchanging punches.
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