Julio Cesar Chavez Jr takes final round to win middleweight title
After the judges' scores were read, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., accompanied by his father, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., has his arm raised in victory by referee Jack Reiss.
In one of the closest battles you’ll ever see, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (43-0-1, 30 KOs), the son of the legend, won a twelve round majority decision over WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik (30-1, 10 KOs) on Saturday night at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.
In Julio Cesar Chavez Jr's corner is Alex Ariza, the man in charge of Chavez's daily nutritional intake.
The key to victory was Chavez’s superior conditioning and the cumulative power shots that he landed to the midsection of Zbik. After both fighters made the mandatory weight, Zbik at 158¾ and Chavez 160 pounds, Zbik rehydrated to 165 pounds (the weight of a super middleweight), his opponent Chavez rehydrated to 180 pounds (the weight of a cruiserweight).
How did this strategy pan out? Early on in the fight, Zbik was busier and more accurate while Chavez kept landing the more damaging blows mostly to the midsection. If this were an Olympic boxing event, Zbik would have been out front on all scorecards because of the scoring strikes. Zbik landed many flush shots to Chavez’ chin that didn’t seem to faze him. By the later rounds, the body shots thrown by Chavez slowed Zbik down.
Punch Count: Chavez threw a total of 796 punches, connecting with 256 (32%). Zbik threw a total of 834 punches, connecting with 391 (47%).
The biggest, most damaging blows were to the midsection.
Chavez threw a total of 724 power punches, connecting with 242 (33%).
Zbik threw a total of 623 power punches, connecting with 335 (54%).
The scores of the three judges: 115-113, 116-112, 114-114. With two of the judges, it came down to who won that final round and in that final round, Chavez appeared to be fresher of the two boxers, the stronger of the two boxers and still landing those hard shots to the stomach.
If you were to check with the Zbik camp, they’d probably concur that the 15 pound weight advantage was too difficult to overcome. Chavez won the battle even before the boxers entered the ring by being in better condition.
A colleague of mine, Marv Duman of Examiner.com, interviewed Alex Ariza and asked the boxing nutritionist of Manny Pacquiao and now Chavez Jr., about Pacquiao’s daily intake. His first question was in regard to the need of a boxer to offset his or her energy output:
“You can’t fit eight solid meals in a day. We have to supplement Manny’s diet with liquid calories, and that way, he does not have to wait long in order to eat again.
“Manny’s burning anywhere around 1,500 calories in the morning and another 2,500 calories in the afternoon. So he’s burning about 4,000 calories a day. Manny has to ingest up to 7,000 calories every day. For every pound of muscle, it takes 50 calories to sustain that particular muscle.”
When you think about Pacquiao, a man who enters the ring at 147 pounds, having to eat 7,000 calories a day, that’s pretty amazing. Finding a balance in your nutrition and training that allows you to fight as strong and fast as you need is vital. One I’m sure all boxers appreciate.
Miguel "Mikey" Garcia has his arm raised in victory after defeating Rafael Guzman.
On the undercard featherweight sensation Mikey Garcia (26-0, 22 KOs) from Oxnard, CA scored an impressive KO victory over the taller Rafael Guzman (28-3, 20 KOs). After giving away the first round to the quick moving Guzman, the more calculating and patient Garcia took over from there. Then, at 1:55 of the fourth round, Guzman went down hard after walking right into a right hand off a solid jab.
In a WBC light middleweight world title eliminator unbeaten Vanes Martirosyan (30-0-0, 19 KOs) scored a TKO victory over Saul Roman (34-9, 29 KOs). Roman got off to a great start by dropping Martirosyan in the first round and then Martirosyan dropped Roman with a solid right hand midway through round seven. Martirosyan then went nonstop laying on the punishment and with only a couple seconds left in the round, the referee stopped the bout at 2:58 of round seven. With the victory Martirosyan wins what they call the WBC junior middleweight Silver championship and becomes a mandatory challenger to the champion, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
This photo was taken on September 2, 2009 at the Mohegan Sun Grandstand in Syracuse, New York. On that night, Christy Martin (l) was declared victorious over Dakota Stone (r).
Also, Dakota Stone (10-8, 2 KOs) won a sixth round TKO victory over the legendary Christy Martin (49-6-3, 32 KO). This was a rematch of their battle back on September 2009; a fight in which Martin won by unanimous decision
In Saturday night’s action, Martin dropped Stone in the fourth round with a hard right but Stone got back up and fought hard enough to win the round.
Then, sometime during that round, Martin hurt her right hand. After a physician took a look, she was allowed to continue but didn’t throw a single right hand in round five and only used her left, throwing jabs and left hooks. Stone was able to connect solidly with plenty of right hands to easily win round five.
After taking a couple of hard shots from Stone in the sixth round, Martin suddenly turned her back to her opponent and ran to a neutral corner, which prompted another visit from the ringside physician. At the advice of the doctor, the referee called an end to the bout at 1:09 of the sixth.
Martin, up on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage (48-46, 48-46 and 49-46) pleaded with the referee and doctor not to stop the fight. It was one of those, I know I can’t go on but I still want my victory moments.
In a scheduled four round lightweight match, James Grant (2-3, 1 KO) was no match for Jessie Roman (7-0, 4 KOs). Halfway through round one, Grant went down and then in the second Roman finished him off.
In a second four round massacre, welterweight Oscar Andrade (6-0, 3 KOs) dropped Kai Zama (5-4, 3 KOs) three times in the first round to earn an early stoppage.
Lightweight Alejandro Luna (6-0, 5 KOs) won a hard-fought four round unanimous decision over Cesar Garcia (3-7, 1 KO). All three judges scored the bout 40-36 in favor of Luna.
