Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. boxing news
Below are what the fighters and their teams had to say at today’s fan fiesta and Q & A session in Los Angeles:
CANELO ÁLVAREZ, Former Two-Division World Champion: “This is a brand new weight for me, but my team and I are going to work hard to get prepared and do everything necessary to win on May 6th.
Both the ongoing press tour for the big Canelo Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr showdown and the fight itself just got even more interesting. The two Mexican stars, appearing on Univision’s Despierta America TV show, bet their fight purses in a bold winner takes all move.
Canelo, who already feels the May 6 catch-weight fight is “personal,” felt slighted when he heard how Chavez Jr. had predicted that he would KO him inside eight rounds. In response, Canelo agreed to the audacious bet with his rival countryman.
Two-division world champion Canelo Álvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) and former WBC World Middleweight Champion Julio César Chávez, Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) will host a press conference in Houston on Thursday, February 23st, ahead of their anticipated clash on Cinco De Mayo weekend, Saturday, May 6 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Two-division world champion Canelo Álvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) and former WBC World Middleweight Champion Julio César Chávez, Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) today hosted a press conference in New York City, the second stop on their four-city press tour. The fans for both fighters came out in throngs and lined up early to get close to Canelo and Chávez, Jr. at the event. Canelo and Chávez, Jr. will meet on Cinco de Mayo weekend, Saturday, May 6 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, produced and distributed live by HBO Pay-Per-View® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
As he continues his preparations for “The Battle of Mexico” with Canelo Alvarez, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is already looking to be in good condition. In the past, Chavez suffered in fights due to not having trained properly, but these weight issues appear to have gone for this fight, one the former middleweight champ is calling “the fight of his life.”
Chavez appears slimmed down and well on his way to being bang on the 164.5 pound agreed catch-weight for May 6. Motivation is not an issue for the 30 year-old in this, the biggest fight of his career, and Julio Cesar Chavez Senior says that a fully motivated, properly trained Junior “can beat anyone.”
The May 6 all-Mexican clash between big stars Saul Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is a huge fight all by itself, ensuring millions of viewers at home as well as a big, big live audience in Las Vegas. But the card just got even better, with the announcement – courtesy of Dan Rafael of ESPN.com – that Argentine monster puncher Lucas Matthysse will make his ring return on the bill.
To celebrate the launch of the ground-breaking deal between pioneering boxing channel BoxNation and BT Sport, the eagerly anticipated superfight between Mexican rivals Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr will be shown live on both BoxNation and BT Sport on Saturday May 6th, as part of a bumper night of boxing that kicks off Saturday evening at the Copper Box Arena in London.
The venue for the massive May 6 “Battle of Mexico” between Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Junior has been announced – the catch-weight showdown will take place in Las Vegas, at The T-Mobile Arena – and Chavez Jnr announced who will be training him for the biggest fight of his career: legendary boxing trainer Nacho Beristain.
Chavez, though the bigger, heavier man (the fight taking place at an agreed, strictly enforced 164.5 pounds) faces a daunting task against the peaking Alvarez. Most fans and experts, though they either predict or hope for a good, maybe even great fight, feel there is only one winner, and it’s Canelo. Certainly it would be a pretty big upset if Chavez – a fighter who has boxed infrequently over recent months and has seen his reputation suffer due to a couple of bad performances – managed to derail The Canelo Express in May.
Last week when speaking with ESPN Deportes, Oscar De La Hoya warned us that the planned September mega-fight between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez could be at risk – at least for that month – because the May 6 fight between Canelo and Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr could be “a war,” maybe even “a draw.”
If this scenario unfolded, De La Hoya posited, Canelo would perhaps not be able to fight GGG in September, as a return bout, or even a trilogy with Chavez would perhaps have to be fought. And now, in also speaking with ESPN Deportes, Abel Sanchez, trainer of course of GGG, has also warned how, with GGG and Canelo both facing very live and dangerous opponents in their upcoming fights (GGG will as we know face Danny Jacobs in March) nothing should be taken for granted.
Is the upcoming May 6 Battle of Mexico between stars Canelo Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Junior capable of pulling in a massive 100,000 live audience? We might find out. According to a news piece in The Los Angeles Times, Oscar De La Hoya and Jerry Jones engaged in a “very productive” talk yesterday about the fight taking place at Jones’ AT&T Stadium in Texas.
The frontrunner to hold the fight might now be the 100,000 capacity stadium, but the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas remains a strong possibility. Canelo has of course got one huge following – see his perceived “easy” fight with Britain’s Liam Smith last September, which drew a hefty 50,000 paying fans – while Chavez Jnr is also a big draw in Texas.