By Dan Ambrose: In a predictable robbery, former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (47-1-1, 32 KO’s) won a highly questionable 10 round unanimous decision over Brian Vera (23-7, 14 KO’s) tonight at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
The judges’ scores were 96-94, 97-93 and 98-92. The last score was as controversial as the score given by C.J. Ross in the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight. I had Vera winning by a 97-93 score.
I figured going into the fight that Vera would need a knockout to get the victory over the much more popular Chavez Jr., and I guess I was right.
Chavez Jr. looked to be at least 15-20 pounds heavier than Vera tonight, and that extra weight seemed to help Chavez Jr. absorb shots and also it gave him more power for when he was landing. Unfortunately for Chavez Jr., he was only able to throw one punch at a time in the fight due to his poor conditioning. He would land a big shot, and then Vera would dominate for the next 30-45 seconds, and then Chavez Jr. would land another big shot.
It was impossible to give Chavez Jr. rounds because he was doing nothing but backpedaling and landing rare shots. It was really weird to see Chavez Jr. backing up the entire fight against a guy that he had such a big weight advantage over. I didn’t understand and I still don’t know how those 3 judges were able to give Chavez Jr. the fight, because there was no way he did enough to win the fight.
Vera said after the fight “You saw how I was backing up the bigger guy all night long. I outworked him. I felt like I won the fight. I may be sick to my stomach after this. I’d like to fight him again. I hope he gives me another chance.”
Chavez Jr. said “Around the 5th round I fractured my right hand. He was very dirty, hitting me low and head-butting me. Sooner or later I would have knocked him out. I’m going to go down to 168 and look for a title at 68. Hopefully, I’ll fight in December. I have to see a doctor about my hand.”
I really lost respect for Chavez Jr. after seeing him complain about a few belt-line shots that Vera hit him with. I saw Chavez Jr. landing some low blows and even some rabbit punches in the fight, and Vera didn’t look to the referee like Chavez Jr. did to complain. It was sad to see Chavez Jr. reduced to complaining to a referee, as he needed the penalty points.
I’m not sure how Chavez Jr. could possibly know if he fractured his hand or not. It looked like he making excuses afterwards for his poor performance because Vera outworked Chavez Jr. in every round of the fight.
Chavez Jr. did appear to genuinely win the 7th and 8th rounds after hurting Vera with some big shots near the end of the round, but he was outworked in the other 8 rounds of the fight. Vera got stronger as the fight got into the later rounds, and really punished Chavez Jr. with constant shots that swelled up both of Chavez Jr’s eyes.
Chavez Jr’s face didn’t look like the face of a winner of the fight. He looked like he’d been beaten up badly because both eyes were swollen up.
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