Tomorrow night in Las Vegas the two most popular Mexican fighters in the sport meet in an intriguing catchweight bout on Cinco de Mayo weekend. 26 year old Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) will square off with the son of Mexico’s biggest boxing legend, 31 year old Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (50-2-1, 32 KOs) over twelve rounds. This fight is both a size and skill mismatch, but in opposite directions. How much skill does it take to overcome size? How much size does it take to overcome skill?
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With the retirement of Floyd Mayweather Jr and the marketability fall of Manny Pacquiao, Canelo Alvarez is unquestionably the number one pay per view draw in boxing in the United States. He is also a pretty great fighter on the back end of almost everyone’s pound for pound top ten. Comfortable in many roles, Canelo can come forward to pressure or step back and counter. He is young too, almost confusingly so after fifty fights. At only 26 years old, the athletic prime of the Mexican superstar is probably only just beginning if it has at all.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr is none of those things. For a brief time he was a top ten, maybe top five middleweight, but that was five years ago. For a less brief time he was a big draw in his own right, but not like Canelo, and that has dampened over the last five years too. Limited to somewhat reckless pressure behind very little defense, Julio is not comfortable in many roles. At 31 he is no longer young either, but he could still be in his prime.
If what I am describing here sounds like a mismatch, it is. In terms of skill, Canelo is a really good, maybe great fighter while Chavez Jr is a club fighter. The skills of Canelo Alvarez should absolutely destroy the limited skill set of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, but to say that with complete confidence overlooks one very important thing. Size, and size really matters in boxing. Weight classes exist for a reason. Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chaves Jr are are not in the same one.
As briefly mentioned above, back in 2012 a then 26 year old Julio Cesar Chavez Jr could somehow make the 160 lb middleweight limit. That year he surprised many by winning a true world title belt from little remembered German titlist Sebastian Zbik. Next he defended it against much more well known Irish middleweight Andy Lee, then trained one last time by the late great Emanuel Steward who would pass only months later.
Andy Lee is not a small middleweight, but that night he was dwarfed in size by the much bigger Chavez Jr. After falling behind early, Chavez Jr kept plowing forward before eventually overwhelming Andy Lee in the seventh round to get a stoppage. This wasn’t done on boxing skill, but simply by being big. Lee, who is a good puncher, couldn’t hurt Chavez with anything so Julio just walked through his shots and beat him down.
Next Chavez Jr tried to fight the real middleweight champion and top five pound for pound fighter Sergio Martinez. A much better fighter than Andy Lee and everyone else at the weight, Martinez was able to hold Chavez Jr off for eleven rounds before the son of the legend just decided to charge forward in the 12th. There he badly hurt the great Argentinian, dropping him twice and being within seconds of a shocking, come from behind victory in a round that got one of the loudest crowd reactions anyone will ever hear. This was the last time Julio Cesar Chavez Jr made middleweight and the last time anyone thought of him as top fighter.
Since then he moved up to super middleweight where he did not fight anyone of note and then to light heavyweight. At light heavyweight, three fights ago, Chavez Jr was completely without any size advantage against Polish contender Andrezj Fonfara. Left to rely on skill and athleticism that he does not possess, Chavez was battered around the ring for nine rounds before retiring on his stool. This is the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr most detractors of this matchup think of when they criticize this fight.
It is not the Julio I think of. Canelo is a great fighter, but Canelo is not a light heavyweight. He isn’t even a proven middleweight. Though he is technically the lineal middleweight champion after beating Miguel Cotto who beat the aforementioned Sergio Martinez, that fight and a few of his other fights were contested at a 155 lb catchweight dubbed “Caneloweight” by boxing fans and media. This is one pound into the middleweight division making these fights officially middleweight fights, but he has never weighed in above that weight at all, let alone at the 160 lb weight limit that Chavez Jr used to be so huge at.
This fight isn’t even contested at 160 either, instead it will be fought at a 164.5 lb catchweight which Julio seems to be well on course to make. In truth, this is Julio Cesar Chavez, former middleweight size monster and recent light heavyweight, being forced back into great shape against a junior middleweight. Maybe Julio is having to kill himself to make 164.5 and will come in weight drained and weak, but it doesn’t really look like that is the case.
The question here becomes the following: How much better do you have to be to beat a much bigger opponent? Or, conversely, how much bigger do you have to be to beat a much better opponent? I imagine the answer, either way, is a lot. More specifically then, is Canelo better enough? I think probably so, but to assume that as a given is a massive mistake here. I am picking Canelo Alvarez by decision, but Julio Cesar Chavez Jr can win this fight.
Either way, it is a battle for Mexican pride on Cinco de Mayo weekend. The fight will be fun.
