By Bob Smith: There are many solid to excellent fights coming up this year, thankfully – Danny Garcia vs. Keith Thurman, Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs, Wladimir Klitschko vs. Anthony Joshua, (likely) Sergeyv Kovalev vs. Andre Ward II, and so forth. Each of these are or will be excellent fights. But I dismiss as not serious the criticisms of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Julio Chavez Jr. as only a “money fight”.
On the contrary, I think that this will be one of the biggest fights, if not the biggest fight of each of their respective careers, and will be very competitive and will be one of the best fights of 2017.
In the end, I think that the stronger man mentally, with the stronger frame, will win, and for me as for most this is Canelo, but on one night and with the motivation and pressure and chin of Chavez Jr. anything can happen.
I will list some reasons why this fight is intriguing to me, and I hope will be intriguing to others as well:
1. It goes without saying that this fight is to be the King of Mexican Boxing and also of PPV Boxing. With a victory, Chavez Jr. can erase the humiliation of the Sergio Martinez defeat, the embarrassment of lack of dedication to boxing, the drug fines, the foolish move to take on the talented Andrzej Fonfara and then to lose by RTD, and the career drain of inactivity – he has only fought five times in more than four years since the Martinez fight. And this is only the personal motivation, a victory for Chavez Jr. would mean literally tens of millions of dollars more in his bank account over the next few years, as well as fame and glory. He will be motivated and the best he can be. The Martinez fight was an epic battle that took tremendous amounts out of both men and neither were the same since then. I see the same thing happening to both men here as well, regardless of the outcome.
2. The chin of Chavez Jr. He has one of the best chins in boxing. This, regardless of his other flaws, is probably his best quality with the possible exception of his capacity to drain weight and then put it back on. He got pummeled by Sergio Martinez who has both faster hands and faster feet than Canelo, and may well be a harder puncher, and he still came back to rock the world of Sergio Martinez in Round 12 and nearly won. Also, while speed may decline, chin and power remain with a boxer as they age. He still has decent power, is an excellent body puncher, and still has his chin. Also it is an open question whether or not Canelo hits harder than Sergio Martinez. Certainly it is beyond dispute that the footwork of Sergio Martinez is far superior to either Chavez Jr. or Canelo and that it was primarily his superior footwork and movement that won him the fight. I can foresee a scenario where Chavez Jr. after having tasted the power of Canelo, decides to walk him down and pound him with body punches when he tires mid-round. This is where it can get interesting.
3. The style clash.
Canelo is essentially a boxer-puncher, with few exceptions. He can be aggressive against an evasive fighter like Erislandy Lara or against someone with a puncher’s chance (Angulo, Kirkland) but for the most part he has been content to bide his time, pick his shots, counter punch, and use his size and skill to bully his opponents and break them down with crisp combinations and body shots. However, he faces two major disadvantages in fighting Chavez Jr. – for one of the only times, if not the only time, he will not go into the ring the bigger man; second, the fighter who most thoroughly defeated Chavez Jr. Sergio Martinez, was an excellent all-around athlete with tremendous stamina and footwork that Canelo can never aspire to no matter who he beats and how many championships he wins. When this is combined with the fact that Chavez Jr. is a come forward pressure fighter with a tremendous chin, I can easily see Chavez Jr. seriously hurting Canelo with body shots when he takes his long breaks in rounds. In fact, there may be no fighter better suited to expose this weakness of Canelo than Chavez Jr. This is why “the man who beat the man” comparisons in boxing don’t make sense – Juan Manuel Marquez Jr. knocked out Manny Pacquiao, and gave him more trouble than any other fighter, yet clearly lost to Timothy Bradley, who no one argues is a better fighter than Pacquiao. Chavez Jr. with his superior size tremendous chin and come-forward pressure fighting style could prove to be the kryptonite to Canelo who is a smoother, more skilled and better all around fighter.
Shout out to the you tube channel Boxing Ego as this article is primarily a summary and compilation of reasons why this fight is a good fight, combined of course with my own opinion.