By Dan Ambrose: Roberto “La Amenaza” Garcia (41-3, 24 KOs) won a surprisingly easy 10 round unanimous decision win over Omar Chávez (36-3-1, 24 KOs) in a one-sided fight from start to finish on Saturday night at the Gimnasio Nuevo León Unido in Monterrey, Mexico.
Chavez is the son of Mexican boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez and the brother of former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Omar doesn’t have the power or the talent of either of those fighters unfortunately.
Garcia lost a point from a deduction for a low blow in the 2nd round. Chavez, 27, was looking at the referee seemingly for sympathy all night long, especially when Garcia would hit him with body shots. The shots were often on the belt-line. Chavez did not like the body shots, so he would look at the referee to have him step in and warn or deduct points from Garcia. Thankfully, the referee only took 1 point off from Garcia. It would have been ridiculous if he’d taken multiple points off just because Chavez kept looking his way each time he would get hit to the body.
The final judges’ scores were 97-92 and 96-93, 96-93. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 97-92 in favor of Garcia. The stork-like Chavez looked exhausted by the 2nd round from the pressure that the 37-year-old Garcia was putting on him. Between the body shots and the nonstop pressure that Garcia was applying, he had the 5’11” Chavez looked badly depleted by round 2. From that round on, Chavez was fighting on fumes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fighter gas out as badly as Chavez did so early in a fight. He needs to work on his cardiovascular system or move up in weight or something, because he’s too young and thin to be gassing out so quickly the way he did. I’m not sure if Chavez has the frame to move up to 168. He looks too thin for the 160 lb. division. He needs to be checked out to find out why he was turning red in the face after just 1 round. Is he doing enough cardio? It looked very strange for a seemingly fit fighter to be so exhausted after just the 1st round.
The high point in the fight for Chavez came in round 4 when he nailed Garcia with a perfect right uppercut to the head that badly hurt him, causing him to back up. Chavez went after him, but he was so tired that he missed with a series of weak follow up shots. It was the strangest thing. Chavez had Garcia hurt and ready to be knocked out, but he was too tired to finish him off. Chavez shouldn’t have been tired because he was mostly moving, taking shots and not throwing many punches. His engine wasn’t’ good enough for him to knockout Garcia when he had him on the threshold of being knocked out. If a good middleweight contender with stamina and power had Garcia in the same situation, they would have knocked him out easily. But the red-faced Chavez was too exhausted, and all he could offer up were a few weak arm punches that badly missed. At that point it was clear that Chavez was not going to be able to win the fight due to his stamina issues. Indeed, things went downhill badly for Chavez in the remainder of the fight, as he become increasingly more tired as the rounds wore on. By the 8th, Chavez was doing nothing but moving and throwing limp punches. Occasionally, he would fall down when Garcia would lean on him. His legs were too weak to hold himself up.
In round 1, Garcia stalked Chavez around the ring, hitting him with hard body shots and hooks to the head. Chavez wanted no part of standing his ground and having a toe-to-toe battle with Garcia. Chavez’s power appeared to be better than Garcia’s, but he couldn’t use it due to his constant movement. It was a mistake on Chavez’s part to move so much because it wasn’t helping him avoid the shots from Garcia. He was able to cut off the ring on Chavez effortlessly and hammer him to the body. The movement only made Chavez more tired. Garcia was landing a lot of body shots in the 1st round, but they didn’t look all that powerful. Nevertheless, Chavez looked TOTALLY exhausted by the end of the round. His face was red when he went back to his stool. In between rounds, Chavez was leaning forward, gasping for breath like a fighter that was in the later rounds of the fight instead of just finishing the 1st round. I don’t understand why Chavez could be so tired after just 1 round. Garcia landed some low blows during the round, but they weren’t so low that they were obvious. They were just a little under the beltline. They really bothered Chavez, who kept staring at the referee with a look that said, ‘Step in and deduct points please.’
After Chavez was hit with a low blow in round 2, the referee took a point away from Garcia. Shortly after that, Chavez landed a beautiful uppercut that connected to the head of Garcia, momentarily stopping his forward progress. However, Garcia quickly resumed his body attack. Once again, Chavez got hit with a low blow that was only slightly low, and he looked at the referee for help. The referee wasn’t buying it and he chose not to deduct another point from Garcia. By the end of the round, Chavez looked totally exhausted from the body shots and the pace of the fight. I’m not sure if Chavez isn’t used to getting hit to the body or if he wasn’t ready for a fast pace fight. Either way, he was depleted badly by the end of the round.
In round 3, Garcia stuck his head into the face of Chavez while he was tagging him with body shots. The referee stepped in and gave Garcia a stern warning about the use of the head. Garcia was also warned for the use of the shoulder after he rammed Chavez’s face with his left shoulder. Chavez was bending forward against the ropes to make a smaller target and to brace from the body shots. Garcia took advantage of this by shouldering Chavez. Not long after that, Garcia landed a punch that was slightly low. Chavez looked at the referee to see if he would take a point away. Chavez’s face was all scrunched up, and it was clear that he was letting the referee know that he wanted him to penalize and/or warn Garcia. It was a borderline low blow though, and it was a waste of time for Chavez to be looking for sympathy from the referee.
Garcia seemed to be a little tired in round 5, as his punches were much weaker than in the 4 previous rounds. However, there nothing much coming back from Chavez, so it was impossible to give him the round. Even with Garcia looking like he was fading, he still won the round in my book just on him being the aggressor. Chavez took a hard body shot while against the ropes, and immediately he looked at the referee to see if he’d do anything about it. Garcia grinned at Chavez when the referee didn’t do anything, and he immediately tagged him with a big right hand to the head. Garcia was sending Chavez a message by nailing him after he looked at the referee for help. I think Garcia was sick of Chavez constantly playing to the referee, and he wanted him to just fight. Unfortunately, he wasn’t capable of doing that. Chavez is nothing like his famous father. If this were him in the ring in his prime, Chavez wouldn’t have been looking at the referee. He would have been on the attack. Chavez also wasn’t the type to circle the ring nonstop for 10 rounds the way that Omar was doing.
In rounds 6, 7 and 8, Chavez was completely exhausted to the point where he was throwing almost nothing. He was just moving, taking shots and looking at the referee for help. Garcia was in command and looking for a knockout. He lacked the punching power upstairs for him to finish off the tired Chavez. In the 8th, Chavez came forward for much of the round, but he was missing with weak punches and not able to do anything to take control. Clearly, Chavez had been told after the 7th that he needed to start putting pressure on Garcia. Chavez tried to go on the attack but he didn’t have the energy to do anything. He was simply too tired.
Rounds 9 and 10 were totally one-sided with Garcia nailing a very, very tired looking Chavez like he was a punching bag. In round 9, Garcia flung Chavez with his left arm and he flew up against the ropes like a tired rag-doll. The ropes held Chavez up otherwise he would have fell to the canvas. The move showed how tired Chavez was. He had no energy at all. The only reason Garcia flung Chavez was because he was holding. Garcia wanted Chavez to fight, and he couldn’t do it. He was survival mode due to his terrible stamina. At the end of the 10th, Garcia raised his arms up in celebration while looking at Chavez, who quickly turned his back on him and walked away in a dejected manner.
All in all, I was a really bad performance from Chavez. For someone only 27, he looks like he’s over-the-hill like his brother Chavez Jr. When he was fighting at welterweight many years ago, Chavez was a decent fighter. Chavez wasn’t world class, but he was a decent 2nd tier fighter. But now that he’s fighting at middleweight, he’s not the same fighter. The stamina is not there anymore, and he lacks the power and the energy to be fighting in this weight class. He might want to think about retirement if he can’t improve his stamina issues. I think he needs to get a full medical checkout to see why he was so tired after just 1 round. Like I said, I’ve never seen a fighter exhausted himself the way Chavez did after that short of a period. Is he not training correctly? It’s hard to know for sure.
It was a good win for Garcia, who picked up his 13th consecutive win since losing to Antonio Margarito in 2010. Garcia has been winning but he’s not been fighting world class opposition. His best wins in the last 7 years have come against Chavez, Briedis Prescott, Victor Manuel Cayo, Norberto Gonzalez and Antwone Smith. Garcia’s victory over form lightweight Prescott was a controversial one though, as he appeared to lose that fight in the minds of many boxing fans. I saw the fight and I had Prescott winning. The scoring was bad all around. Garcia is a good pressure fighter, but be out-boxed, as Margarito showed. He walks into jabs, and he’s not the biggest puncher.