Julio Cesar Chavez Carrasco (born February 16, 1986), best
known as Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., is a Mexican professional boxer who
held the WBC middleweight title from 2011 to 2012. He is the son of
retired six time world boxing champion Julio Cesar Chavez and older
brother of Omar Chavez.
Personal life
Chavez Jr. was born in the
city of Sinaloa, when his father held the WBC World Championship at
super featherweight. His face became known to boxing fans when his
father would take him and his brother Omar into the ring as children,
before each of Chavez Sr.'s fights. As a teenager, Chavez Jr. endured
some difficult moments, including a publicized relationship between
his father and actress Salma Hayek and the consequential divorce of
his parents. Chavez Jr. lived in relative obscurity until he announced
that he would follow in the footsteps of his father and become a boxer.
On part of his career Chavez Jr. has struggled with discipline
issues such as training properly, reaching the right weight before
his fights and his alleged use of illegal substances. On February,
2014, Chavez and his girlfriend welcomed their first daughter, Julia.
Amateur career
Chavez's amateur career consisted of only two
fights against former world champion Jorge Paez's oldest son Jorge
Paez Jr.; both of the exhibition bouts were shown on Mexican television.
Professional career
After those amateur fights, Chavez Jr. started
his professional boxing career at 17 years old. On September 26, 2003,
at Super Featherweight (130 lbs), he won his professional debut by
outpointing Jonathan Hernanedz over six rounds in Chavez Jr.'s native
Culiacan, Sinaloa. Chavez Jr. is signed with Bob Arums Top Rank. Many
of his fights have been held during boxing programs that have been
headed by his father; he has also been featured on the undercards
of many major pay-per-view fights (rare for an up-and-coming fighter,
but no unexpected in his case given his father's fame). He is considerably
taller than his father. Chavez Jr. set a fighting pace that was reminiscent
of Chavez Sr.'s own pace when the latter was a younger man: in 2004,
he fought eleven times, not having a fight only in August during that
year.
Chavez won by a split decision over Matt Vanda July 12,
2008. Scores for the fight were 97-93 and 100-90, while losing 96-95
on another card. Chavez struggled with making weight for several bouts
and was suspended following his win over Troy Rowland for using a
banned diuretic, furosemide, to make the 160 pound weight limit. As
a result, the fight was changed to a no contest.
On June 26,
2010, at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Chavez Jr. had a win against
John Duddy, in what many regard as his first serious fight.
In
December 2010, Alfonso Gomez was signed to match up against the undefeated
Chavez Jr. at middleweight (the contracted weight was 157) for Chavez
Jr's WBC Silver Middleweight belt on the In Harm's Way card as the
main event. However, during training for the bout, Alfonso tore some
ligaments in his left elbow and had to withdraw from the card and
undergo a few months of rehab. For his part, Chavez Jr. was set to
fight Pawel Wolak as a replacement bout, but after adjusting the weight
limit for said match to 165 lbs, Chavez Jr. had to pull out due to
the flu messing up his training and weight loss and then in January
he went on to beat title contender Billy Lyell.
