By Jeff Aronow: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (56-5-1, 34 KOs) snapped his two-fight losing streak by stopping the game but limited Jeyson Minda (14-3-1, 8 KOs) by a fourth-round knockout on Friday night at the Parque Revolucion, Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico. The weight for the fight was at light-heavyweight.
Sporting bleached blond hair, the 34-year-old former WBC middleweight champion Chavez Jr dropped the 27-year-old Ecuadorian Minda with left hooks to the body in rounds two, three, four.
Minda’s corner opted to halt the fight in the fourth after he’d been knocked down. Interestingly, Chavez Jr paraded around the ring, reveling in his victory over his lower-level opponent.
The younger fighter Minda’s hand speed advantage allowed him to land many heavy shots in the first two rounds of the contest, and shots did damage to Chavez Jr’s nose and right eye.
Chavez Jr got hit a lot early
Chavez Jr took repeated left hooks to the head from Minda as he slowly plodded forward in the opening round.
When Chavez Jr attempted to thrower his slower left hook, Minda would nail him with hard left hooks that snapped his head back, causing his long, bleached blond mane to accentuate the shot. It was troubling to watch how many times Minda caught Chavez Jr with his left hooks in the first two rounds.
The way the fight was playing out initially, Chavez Jr looked like he was heading for another stoppage loss, as we saw in his defeat against Daniel Jacobs last December. Like in the Jacobs’ fight, Chavez Jr’s nose was swollen and bleeding, and he was getting beaten to the punch.
The difference last night was Chavez Jr chose not to quit as he did against Jacobs. Perhaps the reason for that is because he knew his opponent Minda is a journeyman level fighter and not world-class.
It’s one thing for Chavez Jr to quit against a top fighter like Jacobs, but he could never live it down if he’d quit against Minda, who had been knocked out in two of his three previous fights by Tyrone Spong and Magomed Madiev.
On the positive side, Chavez Jr’s left hooks looked as lethal as always, and he proved to be too much for the smaller fighter Minda once he started landing that shot. Like Gennadiy Golovkin, Chavez Jr still has massive power in his punches, and he’s capable of taking out anyone if he’s able to hang around long enough in a fight to connect.
On the negative, Chavez Jr looked overweight and not suited for the 175-lb division. If Chavez Jr trained hard, he could make 160, and that would be a far better wait for him than to be competing at 175.
Chavez Jr’s slow hand speed is the major thing that jumps out at you. He’s slowed down considerably from the fighter that defeated Andy Lee in 2012 and John Duddy in 2010.
Speed isn’t there for Chavez Jr.
Unfortunately for Chavez Jr, he’s too slow of hand for him to compete against any world-class fighters from 160 to 175. If Chavez Jr’s defense were better, and if he were fighting at 154 or 160, he might defeat some of the fringe contenders, but none of the top guys.
Julio lacks the speed to beat anyone decent at this point in his career, and he’s too flabby looking. Chavez Jr was clearly carrying around an extra 15 to 20 pounds of fat on his frame. If he cut that weight, he could compete at 160, but again, he wouldn’t beat anyone remotely talented given how glacially slow he’s become.
Those fighters are obviously are more talented than Chavez Jr is at this late stage in his career, but the fact is that Minda was a lesser guy that Julio couldn’t have afforded to lose to.
Minda is a former middleweight, and he looked like he was carrying around an extra 20 pounds of fat. He clearly wasn’t a legitimate light heavyweight in size because if he were, he probably would have stopped Chavez Jr.
The former WBC middleweight champion Chavez Jr came into the contest having lost his last two fights against Mario Abel Cazares and Daniel Jacobs.
In other action on the card, undefeated bantamweight Karim Arce (18-0-2, 8 KOs) defeated journeyman Jesus Carlon (9-8-2, 3 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision. Arce is related to former world champion Jorge Arce.