Staying in line means staying busy and that’s all Antonio Margarito can do in a dogged, controversial pursuit of another big payday.

Margarito told 15Rounds.com in Tucson last week that he wants to fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in September. But speculation, fueled by Bob Arum’s comments to RingTV.com. has Chavez fighting Sergio Martinez instead. Nobody has to tell Margarito that Chavez-Martinez is the bigger fight. Nobody has to tell him that big fights don’t get made for more reasons than anybody wants to recount, either. Without mentioning the oh-so-familiar suspects, let’s just say that bouts between fighters represented by rival promoters these days qualify as a minor miracle.

If Arum, Chavez’ promoter, can’t make a deal with Martinez promoter Lou DiBella, it would be easy for him to stay in-house. Arum promotes Margarito, too. As the first alternate, Margarito gives Arum a marketable option, especially among Mexican and Mexican-American fans.

Many might still dislike Jr. for suspicions that he was allowed to sidestep the game’s bruising dues because of his legendary dad, Julio Cesar Chavez, Sr. Many more dislike Margarito for the hand-wrap scandal that will be with him for as long as those scars surrounding his surgically-repaired right-eye. But the complaints are free advertising. Margarito’s reputation is notorious. The Chavez rep is pampered. Mix the two and you’ve got a formula for strong sales and big television ratings.

That’s why Margarito intends to fight a tune-up on May 26 or June 15 in southern Arizona at Casino Del Sol, where his brother-in-law, super-flyweight Hanzel Martinez, won a first-round stoppage on March 23 on a ShoBox-televised card. In a sure sign of interest among Mexican and Mexican-American fans, TV Azteca plans to televise Margarito’s next bout. But against whom?

One of the names mentioned on March 23 was Jesus Gonzales, popular in Phoenix, his hometown.

“Absolutely,’’ Gonzales said when asked if he would be interested. “That would be great opportunity.’’

But Gonzales’ chances at the bout aren’t great. He is coming off a loss in Montreal to Adonis Stevenson, who knocked him out in the first round. According to people who represent Margarito and Gonzales, Gonzales has been medically cleared to fight since the devastating loss. His promoter had asked him to undergo an MRI for head trauma.

Gonzales also plans to go down in weight — from super middle (168 pounds) to middle (160). Margarito said on March 23 that he is training and weighs about 165 pounds. He wants to fight for the 160-pound title held by Chavez, the World Boxing Council champion who has reportedly been at least 180 at opening bell for his last few fights.

Neither the weight nor Gonzales’ stunning loss in his last outing, however, appears to be the issue. Gonzales’ southpaw stance against the orthodox Margarito might be. The left-handed Gonzales has a better chance at hitting Margarito’s right eye, which was badly-bloodied in his December loss to Miguel Cotto in a rematch stopped after the 10th round.

Repeated blows have degraded the skin around the eye, which was badly damaged in 2010 by Manny Pacquiao, who fractured the orbital bone. It quickly tears and ruptures into the bloody mess that led to the ringside physician in New York to call a halt to the fight against Cotto, despite Margarito’s protestations. Cotto targeted an eye that will be target for as long as Margarito continues to fight.

Margarito might have to become more defensive, says his manager, Sergio Diaz. At best, a change in style is problematic for an iron-chinned fighter known best for moving forward. Against a natural left-hander aiming for a problematic right eye, chances at pulling off that one get complicated, if not dangerous.

Dangerous enough to lose that valuable place in line for one more trip to the pay window.

TUCSON — The long hair and large dark glasses were there. They identify Antonio Margarito wherever he goes these days. On Wednesday, he was in Tucson at a Casino Del Sol news conference for a March 23 ShoBox card promoted by his company, Showdown, and Top Rank.

That hair and those glasses almost have become a costume in Margarito’s role as one of boxing’s bad guys. I’m not sure it’s a part in the bloody theater that he ever wanted, or expected. But it’s there because of controversies as hard to heal as the battered skin around his right eye. He’s a target for well-aimed punches and pointed questions. Yet, he accepts it all with stubborn consistency and moves forward as he always has, in the ring and outside of it.

The bad-boy portrayal was belied for a few hours in Tucson by a patient, approachable personality who is as comfortable as ever in his own skin, despite the scars. He sat with fans, writers, security guards, waiters and anybody else seeking an autograph or an answer. The bad guy was just a regular guy, which I think has always been his real role since long-ago days when he entered the ring at an open-air mercado in Phoenix with an old-shower-curtain for a robe. He is as unassuming now as he was then. But that might not be enough in a dangerous business that often demands a star become his own boss by assuming control of what he sees and what surrounds him.

Believe what you want about the right eye damaged by Manny Pacquiao and bloodied by Miguel Cotto. Believe what you want about whether Margarito knew his gloves were loaded in the handwrap controversy that started before his loss to Shane Mosley. I’m not sure I do. The eye is hidden behind those glasses. Handwrap-gate is hidden in a cloud of allegation. But know this: Margarito has never changed his own story about any of it. Despite my skepticism, I admire him for that.

He arrived in Tucson with the same mindset he had when he left New York in November after his dramatic rematch to Cotto was stopped in the 10th by the ringside physician. Margarito continues to say that the doctor acted prematurely, because of the pre-fight controversy about whether New York would even license him. He doesn’t have any immediate plans to quit, despite mounting talk in Mexico and the U.S. that it’s time. Vision in the surgically-repaired right eye is good, he says, although weakened tissue around the eye is vulnerable to further cuts. He wants to fight fellow-Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., despite questions about whether the Mexico City-based World Boxing Council would sanction the bout. His future, he says, would be determined by the Chavez bout.

“People are opinionated and, sure, they are welcome to those opinions,’’ Margarito said in Spanish translated by Gerry Truax, Showdown’s Arizona promoter for a card featuring unbeaten super-featherweight Diego Magdaleno (21-0, 7 KOs) of Las Vegas in defense of his North American Boxing Federation title against Miguel Beltran Jr. (26-1, 17 KOs) of Mexico. “I still feel strong. I’d be a good fight for an up-and-coming contender such as Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Chavez hasn’t fought anybody at my level. I think that’s a good fight for me.

“If he winds up beating me, then it’s time to retire.’’

No matter what the WBC decides or whether Sergio Martinez emerges as a more viable challenge for the young Chavez, Top Rank and Sergio Diaz of Showdown first want Margarito to fight a tune-up.

“Get a win,’’ Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler said.

A tune-up might restore some confidence and, more important, test the problematic eye. In a post-fight examination after the junior-middleweight loss to Cotto, Diaz said physicians determined that the vision is good. But the skin around it is not. Diaz said doctors recommend that Margarito ice it down before opening bell. He also said Margarito might have to adjust his ring style. Instead of the forward-moving machine with the indestructible chin, Margarito might have to become more defensive. He has to protect the eye from punches that will cut and unleash the carnage that will force another stoppage.

But that begs a question: Can Margarito change that style? I’m not sure he can any more than he can change what he has said about all of the many controversies that, fair or not, have become part of his portrayal. He is proud of his career and how he foresees his place in history.

“I am indebted for life to my fans,’’ he said when asked how he wants to be remembered. “I’m loved wherever I go. People remind me that I’m a three-time world champion. That’s how I expect to be remembered. For that and that I always gave everything for my fans. I never left anything in doubt.’’

Questions are still there. Always will be. But about Margarito’s consistency, there’s no doubt. No doubt, either, about a regular guy’s loyalty for regular fans.

AZ NOTES
During the Tucson news conference, Magdaleno, who will fight for the only the second time outside of Nevada in 22 bouts, calls Beltran “a brawler with a raging-bull mentality’’ Magdaleno hopes for a shot at a major title some time in 2012.

Phoenix super-middleweight Jesus Gonzales heads to Montreal on Feb. 13 for a tough bout on Feb. 18 against Adonis Stevenson at the Bell Centre. In the corner opposite of Gonzales, there will be Stevenson trainer Emanuel Steward, who once called Gonzales the potential star of the 2004 Olympic team. At the time, Steward was projected to be the U.S. coach. Before the Athens Games, however, Gonzales went pro and Steward withdrew as the American coach.

SAN ANTONIO – Tuesday, three or so hours after Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. skipped an open workout at Jesse James Leija’s gym, a workout that might have given local insiders a more favorable view of him, a remarkable new exhibition opened at The McNay – the crown jewel of South Texas art museums. “Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune,” a collection that includes 150 of Warhol’s works, examines the fascination we have with celebrities, especially when tragedies befall them.

Several days later, more than a few of the more than 14,000 South Texans who gathered in Alamodome to see Chavez fight fellow Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio no doubt looked forward to a tragedy befalling a celebrity in the main event.

Alas, they were disappointed once more. Chavez, confronting for the first time since 2007 another Mexican national, went chest-to-chest, head-to-head and elbow-to-shoulder with Rubio for at least 30 of their 36 minutes together and beat the smaller man convincingly, or at least unanimously.

Ringside judges had the match for Chavez by scores of 115-113, 116-112 and 118-110. Scoring from ringside, my card, too, went for Chavez, 116-114. That’s not a typo. I scored the first two rounds even, 10-10, before scoring rounds 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11 for Chavez, and the rest for Rubio. I scored the first two rounds even because it seems a scorer’s job is not to strain to divine a winner in each round but rather allow the combatants to strain for his favor.

Why juxtapose Culiacan’s Chavez and Pittsburgh’s Warhol, when aside from a temporary accident of geography, the two men have nothing in common? Because fame, a thing that happened naturally for the less talented – though not that much less talented – Chavez was a point of endless pursuit and fascination for the late Warhol who is, and will remain, more influential in the world than Chavez or the father whose name he won at birth.

A note about that name. At the kick-off press conference in January, Chavez was more animated than usual. Rubio and Sergio Martinez had been calling for fights with him, using, of course, the none too subtle implication Chavez was as protected in his prizefighting career as in his early life. The WBC’s Jose Sulaiman had recently risen from his wheelchair to wrest the belt from Martinez’s person and give it to Chavez – giving the Argentine middleweight champion a fair claim on some future match with Chavez.

“They want to make money with my name and my fame,” Chavez responded in Spanish, without even a theatrical touch of irony. “Of course I am frustrated.”

Wait, whose name and fame?

That question is a poser for Warhol’s philosophy, as it turns out. Warhol saw fame and achievement and commercial success, all, as one in the same thing. He raised cupidity to an art form, mass producing screen prints in a workshop and publicly measuring their value by the strictest monetary means. He reduced aesthetics to economics, and in so doing showed Americans, those curious children of the world’s most ambitious salesmen, a pastel-coated reflection of themselves. And instead of being revolted, we very much liked it.

Warhol endures today in large part because he was a first mover – to employ a marketism that should revolt any art critic. Warhol anticipated everything from the logo on the t-shirt you wore this weekend, to HBO’s “24/7” program and the celebrity it has made of Money May, a character who, in his desperation and grasping, likely would have enchanted Warhol. But Warhol also had an Eastern Orthodox sense of justice (incidentally, he was quite religious).

He wanted fame to be earned in some way. Which is where the Chavez case makes things interesting. Famous in his country from about the time he began grade school, Chavez never wanted for notice or celebrity. When he made his pro debut, without so much as an amateur tune-up, it was nationally televised in Mexico – the sort of acclaim Americans no longer accord even Olympic gold medalists, if ever we have another of those.

Chavez was famous solely for another man’s toils, and one might infer such an outcome would not have enchanted Warhol.

But what about today’s Chavez, the man who shoved and whacked Marco Antonio Rubio round the ring, Saturday? That’s a more interesting question. This Chavez, still resentful of underclass usurpers, still prone to the majestic rights of doing whatever the hell he pleases – showing up 30 pounds overweight for training camp and then adhering to the spartan ritual of driving the streets of Los Angeles allegedly drunk at 4:30 on a Sunday morning – this Chavez, as a self-inventing celebrity of his own, is another thing entirely.

He has something for each observer to loathe and admire at once; anyone who still thinks Chavez is all good or all bad is employing a filter too many.

Chavez can fight a little bit, can’t he? Rubio was probably just past his expiration date, as predicted, but power is the last thing to go, as the old timers say, and Chavez absorbed plenty Rubio right hands. Lefts, too. What did Chavez do? He moved closer to his aggressor, wading into the beating rain of Rubio’s fists till he found a quieter, softer place. Exactly as you’re supposed to do. Who would have thought that five fights into a collaborative experiment with trainer Freddie Roach – and weightloss guru Alex Ariza – Chavez Jr. would be fighting so much more like Chavez Sr.?

Misfortune will befall Chavez eventually; it befalls everyone who makes his living in this brutal, gorgeous game. Chavez will be stretched prone across the canvas by someone in the next 10 years, finally making of himself an apt subject for a Warhol canvas.

Chavez, as a subject, grows more interesting with each fight.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. retained the WBC Middleweight title with a hard fought twelve round unanimous decision mandatory challenger Marco Antonio Rubio in front of an enthusiastic crowd as the Alamo Dome in San Antonio, Texas.

Chavez swept through early rounds by landing the crisper shots inside. It was a solid performance for Chavez as he was dealing with struggling to make the 160 pound weight limit and the recent reports of an alleged DUI charge in Mexico.

The fight heated up in the last three rounds with the two guys standing to toe with Chavez landing some solid head shots which was a deter from his noted body assault.

Although Rubio threw over 400 more punches he landed about twenty less and the less powerful shots then the son of the legend.

Chavez, 159 1/2 lbs of Cuilcan, MX won by scores of 118-110; 116-112 and 115-113 and is now 45-0-1. Rubio, 159 lbs of Terron, MX is 53-6-1.

Nonito Donaire claimed the WBO Super Bantamweight championship with a twelve round split decision over former champ Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.

Donaire controlled the fight with power shots as he worked the body and head. In round three he had Vazquez against the ropes as he landed a hard left hook and followed up with a flurry on the ropes. That caused a mouse under the left eye of Vazquez which was visible as early as round four. Vazquez had good round’s five and six as he started popping the jab that he followed with some straight rights.

Donaire started landing some hard shots in eight and nine that culminated with a huge uppercut that was followed by a left hook that sent Vazquez to the canvas for the first time in his career. Donaire coasted down the stretch as he switched between orthodox and southpaw picking Vazquez apart from distance.

Donaire, 121 1/2 lbs of General Santos City, Philippines won by scores of 117-110 on two cards while a third judge somehow saw the fight 115-112 in favor of Vazquez.

Donaire is now 28-1-1. Vazquez, 122 lbs of Bayamon, Puerto Rico 21-2-1.

SAN ANTONIO – There was Bob Arum. There was Wilfredo Vazquez Sr. There were Nonito Donaire and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. There were Jose Sulaiman and Lupe Contreras. There were Marco Antonio Rubio and a mariachi band adorned in tight rose-colored garb and silver buckles. They were all waiting – waiting for Junior.

Friday at Alamodome, 25 minutes after he was scheduled to take the scale, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KOs), who will face fellow Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KOs) for the WBC middleweight title Saturday night, led his entourage to the stage. In a moment it was over; Chavez Jr. had weighed 159 1/2 pounds and Rubio had made 159, and the last of their prefight rituals was finished.

Chavez Jr. arrived in royal-blue workout attire – every thread of which he removed before taking the scale – and arrived looking drawn but otherwise unworried. After skipping an open workout Tuesday, under orders from his fitness trainer, Alex Ariza, Chavez did not hurry to endear himself to Alamo City fans. Instead he went through the motions, did no more than necessary, and did little to disabuse those who commented on his arrogance this week.

Chavez Jr., who has not faced another Mexican national since stopping Raul Munoz five years ago, might be surprised how transient his fans’ collective loyalty can be – if he gets in trouble against Rubio, Saturday. Chavez Jr. is absolutely the ticket-seller for this event, one expected to attract 12,000-14,000 fans, but fighting, as he will, before a South Texas crowd, more than a partisan-Mexican one, he could find more than a few in attendance cheer his opponent.

Before Chavez Jr. and Rubio took the scale, Friday, “Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire (27-1, 18 KOs) and Puerto Rican Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. (21-1-1, 18 KOs) each made weight for their WBO super bantamweight title match. Donaire weighed 121.6 pounds, and Vazquez Jr. weighed 122.

Donaire, who strolled through the Alamodome crowd in what appeared to be a Tampa Bay Lightning hat cocked sideways, was his usual picture of quiet confidence. Vazquez, though, possessed the more chiseled physique onstage and did not tire of showing it to a small Puerto Rican contingent gathered behind the barrier.

Alamodome doors for “Welcome to the Future” will open at 5:30 PM local time, Saturday, with first bell scheduled to ring at 6:30.

Today! Thursday, February 2, at 2 P.M. CT
The Alamodome in San Antonio
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

SAN ANTONIO (February 2, 2012) – Undefeated World Middleweight Champion and the Son of the Legend, JULIO CÉSAR CHÁVEZ, JR. (44-0-1, 31 KOs), of Culiacan, México, Top-Five pound-for- pound superstar and three-division world champion NONITO “The Filipino Flash” DONAIRE (27-1, 18 KOs), a native of General Santos City, Philippines, now living in the Bay Area of San Leandro, Calif., No. 1 middleweight contender MARCO ANTONIO RUBIO (53-5-1, 47 KOs), of Torreon, México, former junior featherweight champion WILFREDO VAZQUEZ JR. (21-1-1, 18 KOs), of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, and Hall of Fame promoter BOB ARUM will host their final San Antonio News Conference, Today! Thursday, February 2, on the Stadium Field Level of the Alamodome. The news conference, which will be open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. CT.

Media parking will be available in Parking Lot A located on the South side of the Alamodome. Media should enter through the loading dock tunnel, also located on the South side of the Alamodome, onto the playing field. All the participants will be available for one-on-on interviews.

Arum and the fighters will be discussing their world title doubleheader, featuring the Chávez Jr. vs. Rubio middleweight title fight and the Donaire vs. Vazquez Jr. WBO junior featherweight championship, which will take place This Saturday! February 4, at the Alamodome. Both fights will be televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing®, beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.

Promoted by Top Rank, in association with Zanfer Promotions, All Star Boxing and Tecate, remaining tickets to the Chávez Jr. / Donaire world championship doubleheader, priced at $200, $100, $60, $40 and $25, can be purchased at the Alamodome box office, all Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com and via Ticketmaster charge-by-phone lines at (800) 745-3000.

These four warriors boast a combined record of 145-7-3 (114 KOs) – a winning percentage of 94% and a victory by knockout ratio of 79%.

SAN ANTONIO – Another deadline comes and goes in the silly saga of whether the two best fighters in our sport in 2009 will fight one another in 2012. It’s all bad faith now. A promoter goes to the Philippines to present his fighter four options no fan asked for. A fighter gets on Twitter to make a faux demand he didn’t make years ago, when it might have mattered.

If there is solace to be found in the tired spectacle this time round, it’s how comparatively little folks care. The truth of the Great Recession now touches every American. Quibbles between millionaires about purse splits don’t have the traction they did years ago. The parties are no closer to making this fight than last time, but at least there was no midnight conference call.

Casual fans have given up on the Fight That Would Have Saved Boxing. When they ask about it these days, it’s to change the subject rather than make an honest inquiry. They hear you talking about Andre Ward or Sergio Martinez, men they wouldn’t recognize if watching a Ward-Martinez fight, and interrupt you to say: “What I want to know is when are Mayweather and Pacquiao gonna fight!” You start to explain the latest cramp in negotiations. Then you find no one listens; hey, what do you think of Tebow Mania?

Promoter Bob Arum appears, now, to be the party who does not want the fight to happen while he wrestles with lesser evils: Do I dislike Golden Boy Promotions enough to guarantee Mayweather a gargantuan purse and make the fight without them, or do I dislike Mayweather enough to deny him the fight his resume needs? The likely answer is: Arum dislikes more whomever he just spoke to.

People round boxing no longer believe Floyd Mayweather is afraid to lose to the guy they saw fight Juan Manuel Marquez in November. In a better world for Mayweather, that would be enough; he won the fight without having to make it. One senses, though, Mayweather’s financial situation is precarious enough he’ll soon need the Pacquiao purse.

Boycott both of them, then, and to hell with it!

No, not so fast. There is an interesting balance that must be struck, especially as it pertains to Arum. His company, Top Rank, is the country’s preeminent promoter. It is an excellent outfit that makes its fighters and employees available. Top Rank does the best kick-off press conference in the business.

That’s what went through my head a couple Tuesdays ago at Alamodome. We were gathered before a very large stage and sound system for an otherwise intimate affair. The field behind us was being transformed from Alamo Bowl host to All-American Bowl host. If you looked far enough northwards and used your imagination, you could see where the black curtain would hang for February’s HBO “World Championship Boxing” fight card.

Arum was there. Hall of fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler was there. Trainer Freddie Roach was there. HBO’s Peter Nelson was there. Puerto Rican great Wilfredo Vazquez Sr. was there. Future great Nonito Donaire was there. And yet, we all waited for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. – still known as “Son of the Legend.”

Chavez was the reason for our gathering, whatever we might opine of him. In three Saturdays, Chavez will headline 2012’s first big fight card, in this city. Unbeknownst to him, probably, he’ll begin quite a stretch for Texas boxing, one that will see a Showtime card 150 miles southeast of here, in Corpus Christi, a couple weeks later, and then an even bigger HBO card 200 miles east of here, in Houston, a few weeks after that. But it all starts with Chavez.

That is a sentence difficult to write as it is to read.

Chavez’s fanbase is gaining some authenticity, though. Chavez is fighting bigger, better, darker men, little by little, while projecting more of the spoiled-rich-kid resentment ridiculed by those who do not understand it despite its historical ferocity and effectiveness.

It’s a funny thing, ticket sales. Nobody I’ve ever spoken to – in what is becoming a tradition of covering Chavez Jr. fights – ever names him as a favorite fighter. Most Mexicans pay homage to the patronym while humoring the epigone. And yet.

Sitting on the same side of the podium as Chavez was Nonito Donaire, who appears to have every tool. Donaire will make an exciting fight with Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. on the same night Chavez fights fellow Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio. Donaire is enormous even for his new weight class. He is well-spoken. He gives every appearance of sincerity. He’s not classically handsome, but he has a great sense of style. He’s an incredibly talented prizefighter. And yet.

Chavez is the main event here on Feb. 4, not Donaire. They will fight in Lone Star State because Chavez sells more tickets here than Donaire would in the Bay Area (and because Texas is a right-to-work state, with all that implies).

Which brings us to the mystery of ticket selling. It’s easier, at times, to celebrate those who sell tickets than to explain those who do not. Donaire is an offensive force of the first rate who’s made a habit of winning his biggest fights by knockout. He also has the best promoter in the United States. And yet.

If it were tenable, one might suggest, the premium networks, HBO and Showtime, ought to offer licensing fees that are a percentage – whatever percentage – of a fight’s paid gate. This wouldn’t change the networks’ rosters of fighters, necessarily; it would change the compensation systems they use.

Where would that leave Nonito Donaire? Hard to say. But it’s also a good yellow light for aficionados looking to cure boxing. Ridding ourselves of corrupt sanctioning bodies, alone, won’t do it. But it may also not be simple as rewarding ticket sellers.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

SAN ANTONIO – Mexican middleweight titlist Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., known as much for his father’s exploits as his own, is fully aware of what made him famous. He knows he is known for his father’s achievements in boxing more than his own, and he knows he’s known it for a long time too.

Difference is, he no longer accepts, with a frown and a shrug, others’ pointing it out.

Tuesday at Alamodome, Chavez (44-0-1, 31 KOs), in town to announce his Feb. 4 title defense against fellow Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KOs) – as part of an HBO “Boxing After Dark” card that will also feature “Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire (27-1, 18 KOs) and Puerto Rico’s Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. (21-1-1, 18 KOs) in a super bantamweight title match – was at times nonchalant and at times animated, and a little frustrated throughout.

“First they told me that I have to fight Rubio because he is the (WBC) mandatory (challenger),” Chavez said in his native Spanish, in response to a question about his rumored reluctance to fight recognized middleweight world champion Sergio Martinez. “And Rubio says that I will never make that fight because I fear him. I agree to that fight, and now they say that I fear Martinez.

“I fear no one!”

The increased aggressiveness in Chavez’s tone Tuesday marked a frustration born of his last visit to this city in June 2010, a visit that saw him decision John Duddy at Alamodome in an excellent fight Chavez considered a gateway of sorts.

“The night against Duddy was the best of my career,” Chavez said. “I proved that I can be known for more than just the name of my father.”

A title-winning effort, and HBO debut, followed 12 months later, with a match against Sebastian Zbik. Five months after that, Chavez returned to Texas and stopped Peter Manfredo in Houston. Immediately following Chavez’s November win over Manfredo, though, Sergio Martinez stood silently at the postfight press conference, asking lots of questions by his presence alone.

“They want to make money with my name and my fame,” Chavez said of those fighters who have called for a match with him. “Of course I am frustrated.”

For his part, Marco Antonio Rubio was more anxious to right previous wrongs than take Chavez’s name or celebrity.

“We are going to try to correct many errors that we have made in this career,” Rubio said in Spanish, from the press-conference podium.

Rubio’s promoter, Mexican Osvaldo Kuchle, went a few steps further.

“I’ve heard fans say, ‘Maybe Rubio is just here for a payday. Maybe Rubio’s going to take a dive,’” Kuchle said from a press-conference stage overlooking the Alamodome football field that on Saturday will host the 2012 U.S. Army All-American Bowl. “No, this is a fight that is cultural.”

If super bantamweights Nonito Donaire and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., who both preceded Chavez and Rubio to the podium, were not animated or frustrated as their co-headliners, they were decidedly more charismatic and respectful to one another.

“You become an elite by fighting elite fighters,” Vazquez said in Spanish, before turning to face his February opponent. “Men like Mr. Nonito Donaire.”

“He’s a good person, a great guy, but I know that he comes to fight,” Donaire said about Vazquez, when Donaire’s turn at the dais came. “This is what makes boxing great: Two guys that respect each other but go out there to tear each other’s heads off.”

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

A year ends with memories of those who are gone, optimism for those who are emerging and hope for those who are back. There are lessons from unresolved controversies and controversy that never ends. Farewell Joe Frazier, Genaro Hernandez, Ron Lyle, Henry Cooper, George Benton, Nick Charles and George Kimball. It won’t be the same without you. Hello Andre Ward, Nonito Donaire, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Seth Mitchell, James Kirkland, Gary Russell Jr. and Jose Benavidez Jr. You’re the future.

Those new calendars in the mail are an empty canvas. Opinions and predictions are as irresistible as they are frivolous and about as forgettable as graffiti. Here are a few – the good, the bad and the tongue-in-cheek. But, first, a warning. For anybody who takes any of them seriously, remember that I picked Alfredo Angulo to beat Kirkland, who got up from a first-round knockdown and made the prediction game look foolish with a sixth-round stoppage.

Now, a look at what might – and might not — unfold:

Opinion: There’s a better chance of Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather in 2012 than there is of a fourth fight between Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao-Marquez IV would look a lot like II and III. What’s the point? It would end in just another noisy controversy about who won. Fair or not, Marquez’ legacy rests on the brilliant way he made Pacquiao look beatable. In subtle adjustments from round-to-round last November, he forced Pacquiao to hesitate and think. It was enough to prevent Pacquiao, an instinctive fighter, from establishing a rhythm. Allow Pacquiao to get on a roll, and there’s no stopping him.

Prediction: Marquez, who keeps his promises, retires

Opinion: Somebody needs to convince Mayweather that his 90-day jail sentence on reduced charges for his role in domestic abuse is a chance to think about a legacy he has put in jeopardy. If he stays out of trouble and vows to devote the next few years to his evident talent, he still can achieve the respect he always believes has been denied him. That respect isn’t an entitlement. It’s won by fighting through adversity. For the first time in his career, he is facing some that he can’t trash-talk or side step. It’s the biggest fight of his life.

Prediction: Mayweather beats Lamont Peterson three months after his release.

Opinion: Mayweather advisor Al Haymon is the elusive powerbroker, whose influence is there, yet hard to quantify. There is power, perhaps, in the mystery. Mayweather has called the publicity-shy Haymon “The Ghost.’’

Prediction: Ghosts will get quoted more often than Haymon.

Opinion: Pacquiao will have to restore some lost confidence after getting a majority decision over Marquez in fight he halting called “not so happy.’’ He also has to find a way to solve troublesome leg cramps, which he says affected him in victories over Shane Mosley and Marquez. The fractured confidence should be easy enough to repair for the Filipino Congressman and lieutenant colonel. But the cramping is another issue. It might be a sign, an early symptom, of a fighter one step past his prime.

Prediction: Pacquiao beats Tim Bradley, then Miguel Cotto in a rematch and gets promoted to major general.

Opinion: World Boxing Council chief Jose Sulaiman is issuing statements and clarifications faster than interim titles. This time, he’s trying to say he didn’t really mean to tell the Filipino media that “beating a lady … it is not a major sin or crime.” In a subsequent statement, he said that he “developed female boxing.’’ Memo to women who hold one of the WBC’s lime-green belts: Do what Riddick Bowe did in 1992 and dump it in the nearest garbage can.

Prediction: Sulaiman will say something stupid.

Opinion: We’re just beginning to see how good Ward can be. With news that he beat a Carl Froch with a left hand fractured in two places, we’re also beginning to see how tough he is. A reported audience of fewer than 500,000 watched his victory on Dec. 17 over Froch in Showtime’s final of the Super Six Tournament. That was disappointing.

Prediction: After the hand heals, he’ll win two in 2012, pushing his record to 27-0. This time, more than 500,000 will watch his patient, yet sure path to pound-for-pound contention.

Opinion: Questions loom as to whether Canelo-Chavez Jr., will ever happen because Chavez Jr. a junior-middleweight, is said to be at about 180 pounds at opening bell. If Chavez Jr. is too heavy for Canelo, he’s too heavy for Miguel Cotto. The weight issue might force Chavez Jr. into a fight with Sergio Martinez late in 2012.

Prediction: Martinez wins a late-round stoppage.

Opinion: People close to Antonio Margarito have urged him to retire. Even if his surgically-repaired eye can withstand further punches, the tissue around it cannot. After years of sustained punishment, it doesn’t take much for it to lacerate and swell. That was evident early in his loss on Dec. 3 to Cotto.

Prediction: A defiant Margarito continues to fight, bleed and lose in Mexico.

Opinion: Referees struggled throughout 2011 to get it right. Russell Mora missed 11 low blows in Abner Mares’ first victory over Joseph Agbeko. Joe Cortez was looking away, toward the timekeeper, when Mayweather dropped Victor Ortiz, whose hands were down and his eyes on Cortez. Joe Cooper took two points from Amir Khan for pushing off Peterson. If Cooper warned Khan, it was only evident after careful review of the tape long after Khan’s loss on the scorecards was announced. Cooper’s penalties were the difference.

Prediction: More instant replay. It works in the NFL. Nobody has a tougher job than boxing’s lone ref. Let technology be his ally.

Opinion: Top Rank and Golden Boy, Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya, will continue to exchange insults instead of letting their respective fighters exchange punches.

Prediction: A year from now, we’ll be talking about whether Pacquiao-Mayweather will happen in 2013.

15rounds.com Claudia Bocanegra was on hand at Parlour in New York City where World Middleweight champion Sergio Martinez discussed his plans for 2012 which could include bouts with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Matthew Macklin

HOUSTON – And there was Sergio Martinez lurking stage left, both taller and thinner than he appears on television. He was at the postfight press conference on the second floor of Reliant Center to supervise, not make trouble. Martinez’s class prohibited him from upstaging Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., calling him out or demanding his garish WBC belt back.

Martinez did not have an entourage, certainly no one stunning as the phalanx of tight-dressed chicas that followed Chavez in the converted media center. What Martinez did have, though, was presence and a star’s piercing confidence. “I would knock him out,” Martinez said quietly in his native Spanish, when asked what would happen in a match with Chavez. “Yes, he’s improved, I see a little difference in his speed, but I would knock him out, don’t you think?”

So it tends to go for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Even after a fight Chavez’s promoter called “the best performance by Julio that I’ve seen,” Chavez struggled for respect when his turn at the microphone came. Two seats to the left was his father, Mexico prizefighting’s greatest living practitioner. Twenty feet from Dad was the world’s middleweight champion. About all Chavez could muster in the moment was a “¡soy muy contento!” he repeated so often even his sycophantic advisor Fernando Beltran teased him.

Chavez is not ready for Martinez – the one thing everyone agreed on after Chavez’s fantastic stoppage of Rhode Islander Peter Manfredo Jr. at 1:52 of round 5, Saturday – but he’s a hell of a lot closer to being ready for elite middleweights than anyone predicted he might be eight, or even three, years ago.

After fewer than 15 minutes in a ring with Chavez, Manfredo, who announced his retirement after Saturday’s match, sounded a whole lot like John Duddy 17 months ago in a postfight press conference at Alamodome, exactly 200 miles west of here.

“You never got me down, Ray!” Manfredo said in a passable homage to Robert De Niro’s Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.” Then he said, “I’m happy for (Chavez), proud of him. And you should be proud of him, too.”

Everything about Chavez was better than the last time he fought. Everything about Chavez was better, then, than the time before that. And the time before that marked Chavez’s first camp with trainer Freddie Roach. If Roach’s ever-improving-Pacquiao narrative suffered some exposure by Juan Manuel Marquez two Saturdays ago, his ever-improving-Chavez narrative held up just fine in East Texas.

Chavez now has a man’s body. Nowhere was this clearer than on the Reliant Arena media credential, a laminated green card that featured a goofy-bearded Chavez wearing the small shoulders and bird’s breast of an adolescent. Saturday’s version, conversely, was clean-shaven and muscular.

Chavez throws his jab with greater meaning and effect now than he did in 2009. His right guard flies off his cheek, yes, but that just opens him to counter crosses. And what follows each time Chavez gets tagged by a right hand makes excellent theater.

Chavez is more introspective than you think. He knows you have snickered about him for eight years. He senses that American writers have glanced at his resume and joked about the war he made on the Big Ten.

He has taken all this in what sporting good spirit the world’s privileged class shows the rest of us. In public, Chavez is self-deprecating and respectful.

And then you hit him. He takes that sort of thing far more personally than an average prizefighter. It verily pisses him off, and he goes after you with a special fury members of his class reserve for aspiring usurpers. These days, too, Chavez’s right hand is wicked enough to put down an uprising.

That right hand, and the wholly improved footwork that sets it up, represent layers Chavez has added to his self-portrait. And great portraits are all about layers.

Nowhere is that clearer in this ever-muggy city than at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston – a couple miles northeast of Reliant Arena, beside the campus of Rice University. Through February, MFAH is running a Dutch and Flemish Masterworks exhibition that features, among other acts of genius, Rembrandt’s “Portrait of Aechje Claesdr” – a well-preserved work that first showed 17th century connoisseurs young Rembrandt Van Rijn’s singular talent.

The Flemish Master approach to painting that Rembrandt learned, perfected and improved relies on the use of seven layers. Each layer – from ink cartooning to umber underlayer to finishing palette – is applied to enhance what follows. The miracle of this approach – for if miracles exist, a miracle it surely is – comes in time’s thinning effect on oil paint. Over centuries, the oils used by the Flemish Masters have lost some of their body, allowing each painting’s underlayers to shine through. Rembrandt’s paintings, then, glow with colors more brilliantly now than when he applied them almost 500 years ago. Go ahead and think of anything we’re doing today about which that will be said in the year 2650.

One imagines Sergio Martinez would be fascinated by this approach more readily than Chavez. Martinez is closer to a master prizefighter, and more cerebral. His brilliance of motion and physical self-awareness, too, dwarf Chavez’s.

But Chavez’s apprenticeship in this brutal game has been striking. As his trainer hastens to note, Chavez understands the shape and nature of a boxing ring better than his resume predicts. Chavez has neither his father’s nor Martinez’s economy of motion, but he has confidence complemented by a willingness to engage those who offend him.

“This game has taught me how to be a strong-minded individual,” said a retiring Peter Manfredo, after Chavez stopped him Saturday. “But my kids won’t even look at (boxing). I won’t even order the pay-per-view for them.”

Chavez’s dad chose differently. Boxing continues to be entertained by that choice.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

HOUSTON – Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez may never win fighter of the year, but if the Boxing Writers Association of America gave out a Most Improved Fighter award, Chavez would likely be a perennial finalist.

Saturday night at Reliant Arena in a WBC middleweight title fight broadcast on HBO’s “Boxing After Dark” program, Chavez (44-0-1-1, 32 KOs) outworked, outboxed and ultimately outslugged Rhode Islander Peter Manfredo Jr. (37-7, 20 KOs), stopping him at 1:52 of round 5.

After a fairly even open, one that saw Chavez employ a snapping left jab that was not part of his arsenal when his career began eight years ago, in round 2, Chavez began to show improved footwork to complement his improved physique, gliding away from Manfredo and landing left hooks and right crosses. The third round saw Chavez drop his hands and nudge backwards, luring Manfredo towards him then lacing him with right-hand leads.

After having his best round in the fourth, Manfredo came out his corner in the fifth and began to pressure an uncharacteristically relaxed Chavez. At the midway point of the round, Manfredo caught Chavez with a right cross that knocked the sweat of the young Mexican’s head. That effective aggressiveness proved to be a mistake by Manfredo.

A moment later, an angered Chavez launched a right hand that straightened Manfredo up and made him blink. And in the time it took to complete those blinks, Chavez swarmed Manfredo, causing referee Lawrence Cole to rush to Manfredo’s rescue and wave the match off after 30 seconds of sustained abuse.

Afterwards, an inspired Chavez, watched by recognized middleweight world champion Sergio Martinez from ringside, said, “I want to fight the best.”

Manfredo, who said before the fight that he would retire if he lost, looked and sounded dismayed in a postfight interview that was likely the last of his career.

JOSE PINZON VS. LARRY SMITH
If Mexican Jose Pinzon expected to look good against a guy who goes by the cognomen “Too Slow,” he ended up as disappointed as the evening’s partisan-Mexican crowd.

In Saturday’s final undercard bout, one that proved a weak appetizer for what was to follow, Pinzon (21-2-1, 13 KOs) applied a workmanlike pace to Dallas super welterweight Larry Smith (10-8, 7 KOs) and grinded out a win all three official judges scored 79-72 in his favor.

To a chorus of his countrymen’s boos, Pinzon moved forward and engaged Smith, even when it appeared neither man was much interested in a confrontation. Throwing tentative left hooks at Smith’s high and tight guard, Pinzon stayed busy enough to deserve his victory if not fans’ adoration.

LUCKY BOY OMOTOSO VS. LANARDO TYNER
Detroit welterweight Lanardo “Pain Server” Tyner is one of boxing’s rarest sorts: A trashtalker who has a chin and is unafraid to prove it. He fights with a smile and other antics and wins over the crowd, regardless of his matches’ final tallies.

Saturday’s performance – a fight he ultimately lost to undefeated Nigerian Lucky Boy Omotoso (20-0, 17 KOs) by unanimous scores of 79-73, 79-73 and 78-74 – was no exception for Tyner (25-5-2, 15 KOs), who had even former world champion Roy Jones Jr. laughing from his ringside seat.

Tyner employed hip rolls instead of shoulder rolls and collected some hellish right crosses from the longer and sharper Nigerian. But Tyner also entertained the Houston crowd, ensuring he’ll be back for future undercard performances.

ALEX SAUCEDO VS. CEDRIC SHEPPARD
Professional debuts can be tricky things, especially when they happen in a rival state that shares a border with one’s own. Oklahoma welterweight Alex Saucedo, though, made his look easy.

Saucedo (1-0, 1 KO) kept a measured pace till he saw openings against Austin’s Cedric Sheppard (0-2), and once those openings were found, Saucedo attacked and stopped the Texan at 2:28 of round 1.

MICKEY BEY VS. HECTOR VELAZQUEZ
Cleveland’s Mickey Bey may have Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s dad in his corner, but he sure doesn’t have Mayweather’s defense.

Matched against Tijuana lightweight Hector Velazquez (51-17-3-1, 35 KOs) in Saturday’s fifth fight, Bey (18-0-1, 9 KOs) kept his lead hand low and his leaping left hooks predictable but still managed to prevail by unanimous decision scores of 76-75, 78-73 and 77-74. The Reliant Arena crowd was animated in its disapproval of the official result.

Velazquez caught a wild-cocked Bey left hook with a well-timed hook of his own in the second minute of round 2, sending the undefeated Ohioan to the blue mat, from which Bey rose at a count of seven to weather the next 60 seconds of Velazquez’s assault. From there on, Bey kept his distance and got through a fight that could easily have been scored for Velazquez.

IVAN OTERO VS. GINO ESCAMILLA
In a well-contested and close four-round featherweight match between two Texans, undefeated local favorite Ivan Otero (7-0, 1 KO) and Laredo’s Gino Escamilla (5-11-1, 2 KOs), Houston’s Otero prevailed, much to the crowd’s delight, by majority decision scores of 38-38, 39-37 and 40-36.

A score of 38-38 might have been a bit too close and 40-36 was absolutely too wide, but the light-hitting Otero made an entertaining match with Escamilla, ensuring future appearances for him in this city.

JOSHUA CLOTTEY VS. CALVIN GREEN
Ghanaian Joshua “Grand Master” Clottey (36-4-0-1, 22 KOs) used the nickname “Hitter” for most of his career. He changed to “Grand Master” shortly before his abortive 2010 scrap with Manny Pacquiao in Cowboys Stadium. Saturday, he returned “Hitter” form against Texas super welterweight Calvin Green (21-7-1, 13 KOs), blasting him out with a left-hook lead at 1:56 of round 2.

Texas fans who’d last seen Clottey playing timid turtle behind a shell defense against Pacquiao had to be surprised by the more aggressive fighter they saw Saturday. Clottey was all business, attaining his first victory since 2008 in impressive fashion.

LUIS ZARAZUA VS. RICARDO AVILA
In a four-round battle of Texas featherweights, Edinburg’s Luis Zarazua (2-0, 1 KO) had former champion Jesus “El Matador” Chavez in his corner. That was appropriate, because against San Antonio’s outmatched Ricardo Avila (1-6), Zarazua was all bull, charging Avila relentlessly and winning a unanimous decision all three judges scored 40-36.

From the opening 30 seconds – a half minute Avila was lucky to finish on his feet – Zarazua established a superiority of class and power, blitzing Avila with left hooks galore to the body and a few to the protective cup, even dropping Avila with a low blow in round 2. But Avila displayed a noteworthy chin and heart, winging right crosses and somehow enduring to the match’s closing bell.

MARCUS JOHNSON VS. WILLIAM BAILEY
Saturday’s action began with a six-round light heavyweight match between undefeated Texas boxer-puncher “Too Much” Marcus Johnson (21-0, 15 KOs) and California brawler William Bailey (10-13, 4 KOs), a match Johnson won easily by unanimous decision scores of 60-53, 60-53 and 60-52.

After establishing his superiority of reflex early, Johnson caught Bailey with enough force to knock his mouthpiece out in the fourth round. The referee then allowed Bailey to bend and drag his glove across the blue mat in an effort to retrieve the fallen mouthpiece. Technically, it was a knockdown, but since little that Bailey did in Saturday’s opener was technical, no one stood on formality. The remaining two rounds were a formality of their own, as Bailey cruised to an easy victory.

Opening bell rang on an echo-filled Reliant Arena at 6:16 PM local time. Saturday’s attendance was estimated at 5,000.

HOUSTON (October 12, 2011) – Undefeated World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight champion and the Son of the Legend, JULIO CÉSAR CHÁVEZ, JR., will make the first defense of his world championship crown, against Top-5 contender “The Pride of Providence” PETER MANFREDO, JR., Saturday, November 19, at Reliant Arena in Houston. The fight will be televised live on HBO Boxing After Dark®, beginning at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast).

Promoted by Top Rank, in association with Zanfer Promotions and DiBella Entertainment, tickets to Chávez Jr. vs. Manfredo Jr., priced at $300, $200, $100, $50 and $25, will go on sale This Friday! October 14 at 10 A.M. CT. Tickets can be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets, including the Reliant Park box office (Mon-Fri, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), Fiesta, FYE, and select HEB stores, online at www.ticketmaster.com and via Ticketmaster charge-by-phone lines at (800) 745-3000.

“It is good to see the Pride of Mexico, Julio César Chávez Jr., return to the ring to defend his world middleweight championship that he won when he dethroned Sebastian Zbik in Los Angeles,” said Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum.”Houston has a rich and meaningful boxing tradition. We are delighted that Julio’s first defense against Peter Manfredo, Jr. will take place at Reliant Arena.”

“It was always my dream to win a world championship and I accomplished that in my last fight when I beat Zbik. Now I want to be more than just a world champion. I want to be a world champion for the rest of my career,” said Chávez. “I am taking my first title defense very seriously and I couldn’t be happier to be making it in front of the great boxing fans of Houston.”

“I am very excited about getting the opportunity to fight Chávez. He is a world champion and I followed his father growing up, so this fight is very special to me,” said Manfredo “I have a lot of respect for him as he is the world champion. This is a great opportunity for me and also great opportunity for the fans as this is going to be a great fight. I am going to be prepared 100% to win and bring this belt home to Rhode Island. Winning this fight for me is everything. If I lose this fight I am done with boxing. I see this as my last opportunity, and I don’t plan on letting it pass me by. I know I am in for a tough fight but it’s a winnable fight and I am very confident I will do just that.”

“Peter is a warrior and he is very strong at 160,” said Lou DiBella, Manfredo’s promoter. “He will propose a serious threat to Chavez Jr. in what we expect to be an exciting fight. Conceivably Peter could return to Providence with Chavez’ title belt.”

“Julio César Chávez, Jr. had an exciting HBO debut last June and we’re pleased to see him back on the network in a tough matchup with a formidable challenger in Peter Manfredo Jr.,” said Kery Davis, senior vice president of programming HBO Sports.

Chávez Jr. (43-0-1, 30 KOs), of Culiacan, México, making his first appearance in Houston since 2004, is the son of Mexico’s greatest fighter Julio César Chávez. Chávez, 25, took up the “family business” in 2003, winning a four-round decision in his professional debut. Eight years later, the reigning WBC middleweight champion and superior gate attraction is poised to make his own mark in the boxing world. He took a major step toward that goal by enlisting legendary trainer Freddie Roach to take him to the next level. Their first fight together was a gigantic success, winning the vacant WBC silver middleweight with a dominant 12-round unanimous decision over top-10 contender John Duddy (29-1, 18 KOs), in June 2010 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. After successfully defending that title on January 29, winning a unanimous decision over Billy Lyell, Chávez Jr. became the second family member to win a world title, by dethroning undefeated WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik via majority decision. The June 4 slugfest took place at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles just a few blocks north of the Olympic Auditorium where the legendary Julio César Chávez won his first world title.

Manfredo (37-6, 20 KOs), of Providence, RI, first earned worldwide attention with his runner-up finish on NBC’s “The Contender” during the television show’s debut season in 2005. The son of former world kickboxing champion Peter Manfredo, Sr., Manfredo made his pro debut in 2000 after an outstanding amateur career. Before competing on “The Contender” Manfredo’s professional resume featured impressive victories over former world champion Frankie Randall, via a seventh-round knockout; top-10 contender Ian Gardner, tagging him with his first professional loss; Sherwin Davis for the vacant NABO junior middleweight title; and a lopsided decision over Anthony Bonsante in his first NABO title defense. Following his stint in “The Contender,” Manfredo went undefeated in 2006 and earned a shot at undefeated WBO super middleweight champion in 2007. Though unsuccessful in his challenge the experience was invaluable to Manfredo. He enters this fight riding a two-year-six-bout winning streak, which has included NABF and IBO middleweight title victories over Matt Vanda and Angel Hernandez, respectively. Manfredo, 30, is currently world-rated No. 4 by the WBC.

Dan Rafael of espn.com is reporting that WBC Middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. hurt his hand and is forced to cancel his September 17th bout with Ronald Hearns.

Chavez manager Billy Keane said Chavez suffered a freak injury about two weeks ago when he was in the gym training and stretched out his arms and caught his right hand on a ceiling fan. The fan cut Chavez’s hand, which needed two stitches.

He still wants to fight, but he really can’t,” Keane said. “I advised him to pull out when this first happened. He wanted to push on and fight. He says he is doing this for his father. But he’s only sparred one day and he had a really hard time.”

Keane said when Chavez’s hand hit the fan, “it split him open and there was a lot of blood. His girlfriend took him to the hospital and he needed two stitches. He said he was fine, but I went down to see him in Tijuana and it was all puffy. The hand is bad. He can’t make a tight fist. I advised him again to pull out of the fight. I told him to see the doctor again and he will (on Friday).”

Lou DiBella, Hearns’ promoter, said his right-hand man, Ron Rizzo, got the news Thursday night from Sean Gibbons of Zanfer Promotions, Chavez’s co-promoter. DiBella said he simply does not believe the story.

“They say he hurt himself two weeks ago and then I heard he was sparring two days ago with (Antonio) Margarito,” DiBella said. “People said he was way overweight, maybe 180 pounds. There’s a lot of red flags here so, no, I don’t believe it. I certainly believe he was in no condition to fight. His gut was injured. This was totally predictable, which is sad.”

Speculation that Chavez was indeed having weight problems surfaced again last week when the WBC conducted its mandated weight-check 30 days before the fight, a procedure designed to make sure the boxers are within a certain range of safely making weight.

Hearns’ was within the range when his weight was announced at 174.51 pounds while Chavez’s was listed as unavailable. Two days later, Chavez’s weight was announced at 173.

“I totally saw this coming when the 30-day weights— was going on,” DiBella said. “They released Hearns’ weight and wouldn’t release Chavez’s weight until a couple of days later. Come on. Ronald is going to be crushed because he was working his ass off. He loved this fight. He thought a big right hand might land. I think it would have been a competitive fight. An out of shape Chavez loses to an in-shape Hearns and I think that’s why the fight isn’t happening.

“Do I believe the injury happened weeks ago? No. Then the 30-day weigh-in stuff happened. There are just too many coincidences. Why do a press conference after this supposed injury? Come on. There is nothing you can do but shrug your shoulders and say f—.”

“He’s got no respect for Ronald Hearns,” Keane said. “He thinks he annihilates him. He thinks he’s too strong and he will break him down and it won’t be a difficult fight — even with one hand and a short camp.”

A couple of weeks back Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr joined his father in a very select band fighters who followed in there father in winning a world title. So select they were only the sixth combination to achieve this honour. While it’s early days looking to join that illustrious group is Julius “The Chef” Jackson son of the great Light Middleweight & Middleweight puncher Julian Jackson. The 23 year old fights up at Super Middleweight and currently sports an 11-0(7) record.

Hello Julius, welcome to 15rounds.com

Anson Wainwright – Firstly your currently 11-0(7) winning two already this year, when can we expect to see you in action next?

Julius Jackson – Well, you can expect to see me in action on the 30th of July in my home town St. Thomas U.S.V.I.!

Anson Wainwright – You’re a son of a famous father, none other than Julian “The Hawk” Jackson. Does this add more pressure to succeed for you? What can you tell us about this?

Julius Jackson – Yes it does, I know it will mostly come from the boxing critics and boxing fans, but no pressure from my dad. I’m just ready to do me!

Anson Wainwright – Your younger brother John is also a boxer who is 10-0(9) what can you tell us about the relationship you both share?

Julius Jackson – We have a very close relationship, ever since the Olympics we’ve bonded even closer. We know each others styles and what we both are capable of in the ring. We really help each other grow.

Anson Wainwright – Can you tell us about your team? Who are your manager, trainer & Promoter? Also what gym do you train at?

Julius Jackson – We have a promotional team which consist of 4 members and they do promoting and managing, but Sampson of “Sampson Boxing” is my match maker and one of the members of the promotional team and he makes a lot of the magic happen. My trainers are David Rogers, Joey Vialet, Tony Rosario, and Julian Jackson. I train at the Paul M. Pearson Gardens Recreational Center in St. Thomas U.S.V.I.

Anson Wainwright – What can you tell us about your fighting style? Do you feel you have inherited some of your father’s spectacular power?

Julius Jackson – I would say I am a boxer more than a puncher, I love using combinations, I can stand and fight as well. But I think I have a little bit of that power from my dad, as you can see from my record.

Anson Wainwright – You’re from the Virgin Islands which isn’t known for it’s Boxer’s can you tell us about how you first got into Boxing, obviously your father played a big part in things?

Julius Jackson – Well we have a few fighters like Emile Griffith, and Livingston Bramble, and my dad of course. Boxing was always apart of the Virgin Islands. But yes he did invite me to join the gym, at first just to get in shape, but then I fell in love with the sport.

Anson Wainwright – Can you tell us about your younger days, did you have a tough upbringing as many in Boxing do or with your father being a fighter did you have a good childhood? What was your favourite memory of your father’s career as you were a kid?

Julius Jackson – I had good childhood. My dad and mom were great parents and they raised me well. I started playing baseball from t-ball days, I thought I was gonna be a major league star, but I moved back home from living in Vegas and that kind of died, then I got a bit lazy and fat, so my father invited me to his gym and that’s when it all started!

Anson Wainwright – You fought at the last Olympics in Beijing at Light Heavyweight what can you tell us about your amateur career? What titles did you win, what other Big tournaments did you appear in like the World Championships etc what current pro fighters have you fought and how did you do? Also what was your amateur record?

Julius Jackson – My amateur career was pretty good. I love the travelling and always had a blast with the team. Going to the Olympics was my biggest accomplishment. I also got a silver medal in the Cheaponte tournament, which is Puerto Rico’s biggest amateur tournament. I got silver in Florida Golden Gloves, and silver in the last Olympic qualifiers! I’ve been the reigning Caribbean champion for three years in the middle-weight division. I fought Carlos Negron, Azea Augustama, Evan Nedd, some of the current pro fighters, I have fought. My record is 22 wins, 9 losses.

Anson Wainwright – How popular are you your brother & father in The Virgin Islands?

Julius Jackson – Yes I would say I’m pretty popular now, I’m trying to get used to the popularity now, but it’s nice. Maybe when we win our first titles we will join our Dad as a National Treasures!

Anson Wainwright – What do you like to do away from Boxing, what are your hobbies & interests?

Julius Jackson – Well from my ring name “The Chef” you can see I like food. That’s my next love. I love cooking and the whole restaurant business, I have my Associates Degree in Culinary Arts, and I love it. I also am into the ministry and talking to kids, I love helping others and reaching out! I also do a bit of music. I write and produce gospel rap and reggae music.

Anson Wainwright – Who were your hero’s, growing up?

Julius Jackson – My heroes growing up were actually baseball players like Mike Piazza and Ken Griffy, Jr. But my Dad was always my hero and along with Evander Holyfield!

Anson Wainwright – Finally do you have a message for Boxing fans who maybe reading this interview?

Julius Jackson – Yes, I just want to thank the true boxing fans for staying faithful to the sport and for keeping the history alive, and that Julius “The Chef” Jackson will not let them down!

Thanks for your time Chef.

Anson Wainwright
15rounds.com

Promoter Lou Dibella gives an explosive interview and rant at Bob Arum pertaining to Sergio Martinez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Fresh after winning the WBC Middleweight title last week, Julio Cesar Chavez will make his first defense in September according to Dan Rafael of espn.com

“It’s very important that he go right back into action because he’s the kind of kid that doesn’t understand discipline when he’s not training,” Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com.
.

“When he’s training he’s all right. We’ve got to get him back in the gym as soon as possible.

“We talked to Freddie (Roach) and went over everything and the date that works for us is Sept. 24, and that’s what we’ve asked HBO for,” said Arum, adding that the fall bout likely would take place in Houston or San Antonio. “That’s right before Freddie leaves for the Philippines to train Manny. He doesn’t think the kid would go to train with them in the Philippines. It’s tough enough to get him to train at the Wild Card (in Hollywood, Calif.). I’ve talked to HBO and they are considering it.”

“If they have a good rating, you have to keep the momentum going,” Arum said.

Arum said there are three opponents under consideration for Chavez’s next fight: European champion Darren Barker of England, former “Contender” participant Peter Manfredo Jr. of Providence, R.I., and Marco Antonio Rubio, Chavez’s Mexican countryman.

“I think we’ll try to do Chavez against (junior middleweight titlist) Miguel Cotto next spring in a big pay-per-view, but in the meantime we’re looking at those guys for Chavez in the fall,” Arum said.

“He’s a guy who should be fighting four or five times a year,” Arum said. “Because of Freddie’s situation, Chavez will fight in September. If not on that date, Sept. 24, around that date. HBO is not the only game on the block. Given his ratings, if HBO didn’t want it, or couldn’t do it, we could go to Showtime or do it ourselves.”

Just like his soon to be Hall of Fame Father, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. won his first world championship in his forty-third bout as he scored a twelve round majority decision over Sebastian Zbik to wrestle the WBC Middleweight title at Staples Center Los Angeles.

Not much was known about Zbik other then he was a fundamentally sound technician and he proves that to be the case as he was an active fighter who had an accurate right hand. Chavez started his patented body shots. Alot of the rounds were similar with Chavez getting in his body and Zbik landing combinations. Chavez got through in round five as he wobbled Zbik with a solid overhand right.

The fight had action in every round as Chavez pulled slightly ahead due to his assault on the flanks of Zbik. As the rounds went on, those body shots began to dig deeper in Zbik and there was still some doubt as Zbik landed and threw more shots.

Chavez, 160 lbs of Culican, MX won by scores of 116-112; 115-113 and 114-114 to become a champion with a record of 43-0-1. Zbik, 158 3/4 lbs of Hamburg, Germany is now 30-1.

Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia scored a fourth round stoppage over late replacement Rafael Guzman in round four of a scheduled ten round Featherweight bout.

Guzman, who took the bout in just three days notice after Miguel Beltran Jr. had to bow out due to an injury, came out in round one and used his 5’10” height to his advantage. Garcia needed just that one round ti get into his rhythm as he landed some nice right hands that opened up a cut over the right eye of Guzman. Garcia upped the power on his punches in three which was a prelude to come in the next frame. In that fourth round, Garcia landed a perfect right that dropped Guzman to the canvas. He had trouble getting to his feet and the fight was waved off at 1:58 of round four.

Garcia, 127 lbs of Oxnard, CA is now 26-0 with twenty-two knockouts. Guzman, 126 3/4 lbs of Guadalajara, Mexico is now 28-3.

Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., says he wants to create his own history, which means he will try to re-write a chapter as old as any in the family business.

Fathers fight so their sons don’t have to. Name the profession and you’ll probably find some version of that collective wisdom, passed down from one scarred generation to the next. My dad was a career soldier, a veteran of combat in World War II, Vietnam and conflicts in between.

He fought, survived and left me with a comfortable life. Yet, there was always this tug, the wonder at what the old man had done and endured. Should I have followed him into harm’s way? For me, it’s a question without an answer. I can only say thanks, dad.

For Chavez (42-0-1, 30 KOs), however, there is the determined pursuit of more than just mere speculation. The answer remains unpredictable. The only sure answer is danger, although maybe not against light-hitting German Sebastian Zbik (30-0, 10 KOs) Saturday night at Los Angeles’ Staples Center in an HBO-televised bout for the World Boxing Council’s version of the middleweight title.

But it will surely be there if Sergio Martinez or Miguel Cotto is next for Junior. I admire him for the attempt, especially under the crushing inheritance of a name that is royalty in Mexico. His dad, J.C. Superstar, was – still is — the battered face of an often angry fighter who was easy to like only in the ring.

The dad’s unblinking eyes, dark as flint, provide a glimpse at a heart of larceny. Translation: Julio Cesar Chavez, Sr., would steal the other guy’s heart and often did. Junior didn’t inherit that look, which is one part generous and another part world-weary, unlike his dad’s mix of contempt and single-minded purpose.

Junior’s father grew up seeing only an incoming punch. Thanks to how his dad countered, Junior saw wealth, comfort and – above all – options. Yet, he chose the difficult, perhaps impossible, path.

“To me, it is something that I love to do,’’ said Chavez, who hopes to become Mexico’s first middleweight with a major title. “I grew up in boxing. All my life, I saw how good boxing was to my father and I always wanted to be part of it, somehow, some way.

“I want to make a name for myself. I am very hungry to do something in this world, to be someone in this world and I think boxing has given me the opportunity to do so. I am just as hungry as any other guy and I want to win a world title just like any other boxer.’’

Junior’s relationship with his legendary dad has been complicated. In addition to impossible yet inescapable expectations that come with the name, there have been his father’s substance-abuse problems.

It’s no secret that the senior Julio has been in-and-out of rehab in Guadalajara. A couple of years ago, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum didn’t even mention the dad when introducing Junior at an undercard news conference for a Las Vegas card featuring Manny Pacquiao.

The omission wasn’t a mistake. It was intended, Arum said then. The son, apparently exasperated that his dad had fallen off the wagon, didn’t want to talk about him a couple of days before a fight. It looks as if father and son have moved on since then and found new ground on which to rebuild a fractured relationship.

“People are human and everything happens for a reason,’’ Junior said in a conference call. “I saw a lot of things with my father in my lifetime and obviously I think I am prepared to handle anything that comes my way. I am also human and you never know what is going to happen. You just try to do the best you can, not only in the ring but in your life.’’

Above all, repaired relationship is a chance to move beyond history and toward a story that the son hopes is his. It’s a sign that Junior is step closer to maturity. There’s also trainer Freddie Roach, a teacher who is turning into a father-like figure himself. Junior enters the ring with Roach in his corner for the third time. Initial results were promising with a victory over John Duddy last June. They were less so with a ho-hum performance in a decision over Billy Lyell in January.

“I actually expect a much better performance,’’ Roach said when asked about the victory over Duddy. “We had a much better training camp for this fight. We had great sparring.’’

In Junior, Roach says he sees an attentive student who knows the ring as if he had grown up in it. Delete the if. Junior did grow up in it. Growing up in it, however, is different than conquering it.

Despite the three ropes, four corners, two stools and canvas, he grew up in a place dictated by his dad’s defiant toughness. He can make it his, but only with his style and personality, both of which are a fight with Martinez or Cotto from maturing into an identity that makes him his own man.

Only then can we quit calling him Junior.

LATE LOOK AT THE TAPE
Showtime sent a preview to the media of a moment before the 10th-round of Shane Mosley’s loss to Pacquiao. The network plans to show it Saturday before the Super Six tournament semi-final between Carl Froch and Glen Johnson in Atlantic City.

In it, Mosley wants to quit, which is what he essentially did anyway after he was knocked down in the third. He pleads with trainer Naazim Richardson to throw in the towel, saying he can’t move. Richardson won’t let him. Richardson urges him on.

There are questions about whether Richardson or the Nevada State Athletic Commission should have stopped it at that point. A stoppage would have done the fans a favor. In the end, however, Richardson did Mosley a favor. At least, Mosley can point to his record and say that he didn’t quit on the stool.

NOTES, QUOTES
· Golden Boy’s apology to Pacquiao for allegedly linking him to performance-enhancing drugs marks an end to the defamation suit that was at the root of the rancorous split with Top Rank. It’s a relief, but not much of a surprise. Top Rank and Golden Boy were leaving too much money on the table with fights left undone by the feud. That said, the truce is also a message to Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who along with his uncle and dad are still being sued. The promoters are moving forward and perhaps beyond the Mayweather-Pacquiao possibility, which has held the business hostage.

· There’s a buzz building in Phoenix about 19-year-old junior-middleweight Juanito Gonzalez, who turned his pro debut on May 28 in Parker, Ariz., into some quick work with a first-round TKO of Anthony Garcia (0-1), also of Phoenix. Garcia is scheduled to fight on a June 11 card featuring junior-welterweight prospect Jose Benavidez (11-0, 10 KOs) in his home-state debut as a pro at Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino in suburban Chandler.

Photo by Chris Farina / Top Rank

LOS ANGELES (June 1, 2011) – Rafael “Chocho” Guzman is the new opponent for undefeated No. 1 featherweight contender Mikey Garcia in the co-main event of “The Son Also Rises: Sebastian Zbik vs. Julio César Chávez, Jr. World Middleweight Championship,” this Saturday at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles. The 10-round featherweight rumble will open the two-bout HBO Boxing After Dark broadcast at 10 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast.)

Guzman (28-2, 20 KOs), of Guadalajara, México, will be making his U.S. debut when he faces Garcia. A former WBC FECARBOX super featherweight and lightweight champion, Guzman enters this fight having won 10 of his previous 11 bouts. His last three victories have been by knockout. Garcia’s original opponent, Miguel Beltrán Jr., was diagnosed with a fractured left hand and was forced to withdraw from the card. Garcia (25-0, 21 KOs), hails from Oxnard, Calif.

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Promoted by Top Rank, in association with Zanfer Promotions, Universum Media Network, TECATE and STAPLES Center, “The Son Also Rises: Zbik vs. Chávez, Jr. World Middleweight Championship” takes place This Saturday! June 4, at STAPLES Center, and marks the first fight Chávez Jr. has fought in Los Angeles in six years. HBO will televise the fight live, beginning at 10 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast.)

Remaining tickets, priced at $100, $75 and $50, can be purchased online at www.staplescenter.com, via Ticketmaster charge-by-phone lines at (800) 745-3000, or at the STAPLES Center box office.

The world championship event will be highlighted by a celebration of the boxing career of Julio César Chávez, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame the following week.

Dan Rafael of espn.com is reporting that undefeated Featherweight Mikey Garcia will take on once beaten Miguel Beltran Jr. as the televised co-feature of the June 4 WBC Middleweight showdown featuring Julio Cesar Chavez and Sebastian Zbik, spurning down a title opportunity against Billy Dib.

“It’s a good fight because styles make fights,” said Carl Moretti of Top Rank, Garcia’s promoter. “Beltran is a little bit bigger than Mikey. It can’t help but be a good fight.”

“They decided to not pursue the vacant IBF title fight against the worst television fighter in history,” Moretti said. “HBO wasn’t going near it and refers to Dib as the worst television fighter, and I don’t disagree. It’s a tough sell in today’s market. Mikey won’t have the opportunity with the IBF in his next fight, but I have no doubt he will fight for a title and win one.

“Anyone can fight for a belt, but looking good and moving on is where you make money and grow and cement your reputation. I think that passing on a fight with Billy Dib in Staples Center in a fight that would have been ugly to watch was a good move in the long run,” Moretti said.

“Mikey, more than anything, wants to be a champion, but passing on another HBO fight, it was just too much to give up,” said Garcia’s manager Cameron Dunkin. “He considers it an honor to be on HBO and he would never ever turn that down. Although he wants the IBF title and is thankful to them for making him the No. 1 contender, this wasn’t a 10-second decision. He said he can’t give up HBO for anything. It hurt him to give up the title shot, but he said that nothing touches being on HBO, especially to come right back and have a second fight in a row on HBO. He knows he will get his title shot eventually.”

According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. – Pawel Wolak fight scheduled for Saturday night as part of a Top Rank PPV card is off due to Chavez being ill but the rest of the show will go on that will feature two title fights.

Chavez woke up with a 103-degree temperature on Tuesday and won’t fight, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com.

“He looked like he had shaken it and he worked out Monday. I was there and I saw it,” said Bob Arum, who will promote the show from Anaheim, California. “His legs were a little tight but he worked out OK. [Tuesday morning] he got up with a 103 fever. He tried. You can’t fault the kid. You can’t put him in a fight with a temperature. It is absolutely legitimate.”

Instead of the Chavez-Wolak main event, Arum said he would elevate the scheduled co-feature, a 12-round bantamweight match between the Philippines’ pound-for-pound-ranked Nonito Donaire (24-1, 16 KOs) and former bantamweight titlist Wladimir Sidorenko (22-2-2, 7 KOs) of Ukraine.

“He got sick last Thursday after sparring and we kind of knew something was wrong,” strength coach Alex Ariza told ESPN.com. “He felt a little weak, but he finished 10 rounds [of sparring] but he kept telling Freddie he wasn’t in the groove. We thought maybe it was just a bad day, but later that night when he did an interview he started getting the cold sweats.

“He got back in the ring on Monday. He did four rounds, but once he started hitting the mitts with Freddie, he had cramps in his legs and later that night when we went to my house, he had a low-grade fever. [Tuesday morning] he woke up around 7 when we were going to train and he had a higher fever, about 102 or 103, and we knew this was more serious than we thought. I reported to Bob and he said if the kid is sick, he’s sick and there’s nothing we can do about it between now and Saturday.”

Arum said Wolak (27-1, 17 KOs) would remain on the televised portion of the card and could face Mexico’s Jose Pinzon (18-1-1, 12 KOs), although Wolak and his team wanted to view a video of Pinzon before committing to the bout.

Also on the card: lightweight titlist Humberto Soto (53-7-2, 32 KOs) of Mexico defends his belt against Urbano Antillon (28-1, 20 KOs) of Maywood, Calif., and featherweight contender Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) of Oxnard, Calif., faces Olivier Lontchi (18-1-2, 8 KOs) of Montreal.

“I’m not going to cancel the show,” Arum said. “Anyone who wants a refund at the gate can get a refund. But you can’t cancel the show and do that to the kids who were getting ready to fight for the past six or eight weeks. You have an obligation if you can to follow through on the card.”

Top-10 contender Pawel “Raging Bull” Wolak will be In Harm’s Way on Saturday, December 4, when he challenges undefeated WBC Silver middleweight champion Julio César Chávez, Jr. in a 12-round title fight. Wolak replaces the injured Alfonso Gomez, Chávez’s original opponent, who withdrew today after an MRI detected a ligament tear in his left elbow.

Wolak (27-1, 17 KOs), from Mount Arlington, NJ, enters this fight riding a two-year, six-bout winning streak, with three of those victories coming by knockout. The combined record of the last three opponents he defeated — James Moore, Ishmail Arvin and Carlos Nascimento – had a combined record of 56-4-4 when he fought them, which translates into an impressive 88% winning percentage. His last fight, a 10-round unanimous decision victory over Moore (17-2), was fought on the historic Yuri Foreman-Miguel Cotto undercard at Yankee Stadium on June 5. He is currently world-rated No. 7 by the WBA.

“Everything worked out well”, said Wolak, who almost fought Chavez previously before the bout fell apart. “I had another fight December 16 so I will be in good enough shape to fight him. We are just finalizing some things (in training) and I don’t have to lose any (extra weight).”

A former New York State middleweight champion, Wolak, 29, is known as aggressive, high-pressure style fighter who always makes for exciting fights. Trained by Aroz Gist, Wolak, an East Coast fixture, will be making his West Coast debut when he rumbles with Chávez Jr.

“He is tough but hopefully my pressure will overwhelm him.” “I plan to dig deep every round and hopefully I will come out on top. I must thank my promoter Top Rank for this great opportunity and I will be ready.”

He wont be fighting Miguel Cotto, but popular Middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will be in the ring on December 4 as he will take on former world title challenger Alfonso Gomez as part of a Top Rank Pay Per View card in Anaheim, Californina, that according to Dan Rafael of espn.com

• Former flyweight titlist Nonito Donaire (24-1, 16 KOs), a top-10 pound-for-pound fighter, will move up from junior bantamweight to face former bantamweight titlist Wladimir Sidorenko (22-2-2, 7 KOs) for a vacant interim belt.

• Lightweight titlist Humberto Soto (53-7-2, 32 KOs) will make his third defense against Urbano Antillon (28-1, 20 KOs) in a bout that had been slated to take place in May but was called off when Soto elected to take a different fight.

• Lightweight contender Brandon Rios (25-0-1, 18 KOs), coming off a breakout performance in which stormed past favored Anthony Peterson for a dominant seventh-round disqualification win on Sept. 11 in his HBO debut, will face an opponent to be determined.

“I think it’s a nice card. I like that card. It should be a fun show.” Said Top Rank boss Bob Arum , adding that the Honda Center will be configured for a crowd of about 10,000. “We have priced the tickets very reasonably — $200, $100, $50 and $30 — so we’re expecting a good crowd.”

“I’m excited to fight someone who has a good resume like Sidorenko, who’s been champion,” Donaire said. “I’m excited to fight somebody at this level rather than the guys I’ve been fighting. It’s good to be challenged and it makes me better. I’m facing a guy who knows how to win and is experienced. The challenge is there for me. Sidorenko is not a joke.”

Should Donaire prove victorious he would be in line to fight Fernando Montiel in early 2011

If Soto and Rios each win their bouts, Arum said he plans to match them in the first quarter of next year.

“That’s the idea, and maybe we could do Rios and Antillon, too, if Antillon wins,” Arum said. “We’ll try to make the fight for HBO or Showtime.”

“Rios is a lovely kid and now he’s a hard-working guy,” Arum said. “I think he’s going to go far and I’d love to give him a chance to fight for a world title on one of the premium networks.”

“Chavez is taking the fight seriously,” Arum said. “He’s going to spar with Manny and it’s perfect. Chavez is bigger than Manny, but Chavez is getting ready for a smaller guy [Gomez] and Manny is getting ready for a bigger guy [Antonio Margarito on Nov. 13]. Chavez being in the Philippines sparring with Manny will help sell both fights.”

One of the fighters who did not make the cut for the pay-per-view, junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan, will still get a televised opportunity. Arum said he plans to have Martirosyan fight in his hometown of Glendale, Calif., in the headline fight on a Fox Sports “Top Rank Live” card Dec. 18, possibly against Pawel Wolak — who had been in the running to face Chavez.

“We’ll save people from having to watch Bernard Hopkins’ fight that same night,” Arum cracked, taking a dig at Hopkins’ light heavyweight title challenge to Jean Pascal, which is scheduled the same day on Showtime PPV.

According to Dan Rafael of espn.com former Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik could be heading for a December 4th showdown with undefeated and immensely popular Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. possibly in Cowboys Stadium.

That’s the fight we are looking to do,” Said Bob Arum, who promotes both Pavlik and Chavez Jr.

“We were sitting around having drinks and we came up with it,” Arum said. “We checked with [Chavez trainer] Freddie Roach and he loves the fight. Cameron Dunkin )who manages Pavlik) checked with the Pavliks and they love the fight, so let’s get it on.”

“When I got back [to Las Vegas] from San Juan, I checked with both sides again and everybody was on board,” Arum said. “We’re going to move ahead in the next couple of weeks and get the deal done. I think we can do a lot of business with that fight.”

“The fight will be at 160 and he’ll get a nutritionist, a dietitian, whatever he has to do,” Dunkin said. “He’s fired up about this fight. He is fully committed to the fight. He’s even willing to leave [his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio] to train.”

Arum said he has not spoken yet about the fight with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones yet, but “I spoke with his guy in general about the date and this is the kind of fight that is right up their alley — a white guy from the Midwest fighting the son of the Mexican legend in Cowboys Stadium with reasonable ticket prices. I think we can do 40,000 or 50,000 people.”

“We want the fight, we absolutely want the fight,” Dunkin told ESPN.com. “We were told by Bob that it was going to happen.”

“After we got back from Puerto Rico, Bob called me again to talk about the fight and I told him. ‘Everybody was on board so let’s make the fight happen,’ ” Dunkin said.

“I still need to know the money,” Dunkin said. “Bob said he’d give us a guarantee and a really good upside and everyone will make a lot of money. He said, ‘I can’t promise you a lot of guaranteed money, but if the fight does well everybody will make money.’ We’re fine with that. We’re willing to earn our way. I think it’s a very sellable fight. I think people would like to see it. I’ll tell you one thing — it’s a fun fight and it will be an action fight. Both of these guys can hit and both of them get hit.

“We’re ready to go. We’re just waiting for Bob to let us know what exactly he’s talking about financially. Other than that my guy is itching to go. When he heard it might be at Cowboys Stadium, he got really excited. He said that would be a lot of fun.”
Photo By Chris Farina / Top Rank

SAN ANTONIO – Here’s something you didn’t know. Saturday afternoon round 3:30 P.M., a young Texas amateur named Adam Reynolds almost didn’t make his boxing debut at a 34-bout smoker in San Fernando Gym. Despite his youth and fitness, Reynolds’ blood pressure was too high for a ringside doctor to let him answer the opening bell.

The prospect of being struck in the face can play havoc with your heart.

Eight hours later, about a mile southeast of San Fernando, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. put the finishing touches on the best match of his 42-fight career. It was a performance marked unexpectedly by Chavez’s relaxation under fire.

There’s something to be said for growing up around the sport. There’s something to be said for knowing boxing.

Saturday at Alamodome, before a few fans more than 8,000, Chavez headlined “Latin Fury 15” and beat Ireland’s John Duddy in an entertaining 12-round middleweight scrap that saw sustained action in every round. It also saw Chavez win by two proper scores – Judge Crocker’s 116-112 and Judge Lederman’s 117-111 – and Juergen Langos’ unacceptable tally of 120-108.

For those who watched on pay-per-view or the south side of the ring, if the Texas crowd sounded unenthusiastic, here may be an acoustical explanation. Alamodome, which is cavernous, was configured to seat fans in its northernmost 1/3. That meant cheers had to go through a curtain and then across 200 feet of emptiness before they could hit the south wall and reverberate back to themselves.

There were plenty of folks there, though, and they cheered plenty too. Some cheered the Chavez brand, recalling fondly the night 17 years before that Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. posted a record attendance number in Alamodome. Some, no doubt, went to see a Mexican child of privilege get his ass beat by a tough Irishman. But all were there, in part, because they had no idea what was going to happen.

Chavez was considered soft by even some of his admirers, heading towards the ring Saturday. Among those who didn’t admire him, there was a belief that a 12-round match absolutely favored any Chavez opponent but especially a man rugged as John Duddy. Both were wrong.

“We took (Chavez) into deep water,” Duddy said at the post-fight press conference. “And, yes, he can swim. He’s a tough kid. A tough kid.”

Duddy wore dark sunglasses as he spoke those words. He wore them because Chavez had left bruises and shallow lacerations around his eyes. And there was a good metaphor in those glasses for anyone who had been at Wednesday’s press conference.

There, Chavez sauntered on stage like a kid hoping to become a matinee idol – jeans, open-collared shirt, stylish blazer, sunglasses. Duddy, meanwhile, watched him in a business-casual getup of khakis, belt, dress shirt and green Chuck Taylors. The contrast was stark: Working class meets spoiled brat.

At Saturday’s post-fight press conference, on the other hand, Chavez wore no sunglasses. He didn’t hide the damage round his eyes Duddy’s fists had inflicted; he’d completed a rite of passage in his own mind from novelty to contender.

“Now I am more – how to say it,” Chavez said in Spanish, and he paused. “I am more convinced of myself.”

And to prove it, he employed self-deprecation – the sign of a secure identity. Asked what difference his new trainer Freddie Roach had wrought, Chavez said he’d just needed someone to take out of him the “huevón.”

“Huevón” is a wonderful Mexicanism. It begins with the Spanish slang for a man’s balls, eggs, adds the augmentative “ón” and suggests a man with balls so big he doesn’t bother himself with trying at anything. It’s like laziness on PEDs.

Roach took that from Chavez in their four-week training camp, transforming him from a lazy fighter. Saturday night, in the opening three rounds, Chavez retreated behind an occasional jab and let Duddy impose himself. But at the start of the fourth, confident Duddy could not hurt him, Chavez went out and began to walk the Irishman down.

Duddy couldn’t have asked for more. He got a fair battle with a man who would not run from him. Had you told Duddy before the fight that Chavez would stand in the middle of the ring and trade with him for nine rounds, Duddy might have said, “Then I’ll have me way with him.”

But he didn’t. Duddy managed to buckle Chavez with a counter right hand in the sixth round, but after that, Chavez’s confidence grew in proportion to Duddy’s age; one man got quicker while the other got older. Take nothing away from Duddy’s character, though. After losing the ninth badly enough to justify a stoppage, Duddy went on to win the 12th on one judge’s card.

But Chavez was not in danger. He was entirely untroubled. It surprised a number of folks at ringside. It didn’t surprise Freddie Roach.

“Not at all,” Roach said afterwards. “That’s how he is in the gym. I’m telling you, he knows the ring. He knows boxing.”

Now all Chavez needs is more discipline and some improved balance. He has the right teacher for that. And he has most of the tools he’ll need to contend.

Boxing is a harsh master, of course, but it’s also one that teaches those who wish to learn.

Look at Adam Reynolds. After a second opinion from a ringside nurse allowed his first bout to happen Saturday afternoon, Reynolds fought a tense opening round. But by the third, he was loosened up – enough to win his debut with a knockout.

Bart Barry can be reached via [email protected]

Photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank

No telling who was first to say that fathers fight so their sons don’t have to. But I’m guessing it was a mom, who from a ringside seat sat like a horrified witness on that inevitable night when dad got bloodied, bruised and stitched up.

It is a powerful sentiment, as simple as it is sensible. But sorry, mom, it doesn’t always apply. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the most notable example. From his father and uncle, he inherited instinct and skill, perfected them and transformed them into a family business. Mayweather Jr. makes it work. Marvis Frazier didn’t. Former heavyweight great Joe Frazier’s son should have listened to mom before Mike Tyson sprinted out of a corner in 1986 and launched him into unconsciousness. Joe would have lasted longer.

On the scale between Mayweather and Marvis, it’s hard to say where Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. belongs. A better idea, perhaps, is forthcoming Saturday night when the son with his dad’s legendary name, athletic royalty in Mexico, faces Irish middleweight John Duddy at The Alamodome in San Antonio on a pay-per-view card.

Duddy’s credentials (29-1, 18 KOs) say that Chavez (40-0-1, 30 KOs) is finally being weaned off a sliver-spoon diet of soft opposition. It’s a step or two in an attempt to quell impatience with a young fighter whose name represents an impossible collection of expectations. Chavez’ dad is a scarred personification of Mexican pride in a stubborn willingness to endure punches and punishment in the battle to fight, always fight on.

But it’s only a name. I’m not sure whether Chavez’s 24-year-old son will ever become a good fighter. But I am sure that he will never be his father. He can’t change his name to World B Free, but he can begin to abdicate expectations that he become a chip off of Mexico’s indestructible myth. After only a four-week camp, the move to trainer Freddie Roach is still in the experimental stage. If it begins to work against Duddy, however, it might be another step in allowing him to forge an identity, a fighter in his own right instead of just Jr.

“It came to a point in my career that if I wanted to do better,’’ said Jr., whose doubters grew after he tested positive for a banned substance after his last fight seven months ago against unknown Troy Rowland. “If I wanted bigger and better things I had to make a change. I did it because I knew I needed it for my career, I still want to do great things in boxing and that’s what motivated me. I thought: Do I want to stay where I am or do I want to get better? This opportunity came and I took it and I’m very happy that I did.

“Any time you make a move to the unknown you get nervous. I wasn’t sure what to expect but once I made the decision I knew I would be capable of doing anything he asked of me. I knew I could a lot of things and wouldn’t be here now if I couldn’t.”

Unlike his compact father’s heavy-handed style of fighting on the inside in a battle of attrition, the son is longer and seemingly built for tactics dictated by a long jab and agile footwork. The knowledge, perhaps instinct, is there, Roach said in a conference call Wednesday from San Antonio.

“He has enjoyed the work, he really has,’’ Roach said, almost as though he was surprised.

Roach, like everybody else, had heard the stories about a questionable work ethic. Doubts about Jr.’s willingness to fight on were further fueled by a late arrival to Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles. It was beginning to look as if Jr. had inherited only his father’s diva-like reputation for arriving for news conferences or workouts whenever it suited him. But, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said, Jr. was late only because of a paperwork delay in acquiring a visa.

“There were a lot of warning signs about how he is lazy and doesn’t want to work and would last a week with me,’’ said Roach, who agreed to work Jr.’s corner after Arum and Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler pointedly urged Jr. to watch the work ethic exercised by Manny Pacquiao in training for Joshua Clottey. “He is a great kid, great to work with, and is very disciplined. He gets up in the morning and does his roadwork every day, comes in the gym and sparred up to 12 rounds with three sparring partners. Overall, it was a real good experience and we enjoyed each other’s company and it was a pleasure.

“I was going to give him one more day to arrive in camp before deciding I wasn’t going to have enough time with him, but then he showed up. We had four weeks together and obviously it would have been better to have more but next time around we’ll get better and better. We know what we have in front of us and we’ll be ready for it.’’

For Jr., San Antonio represents a time and place, a career cross roads, for his father and maybe one for him. He was seven years old in 1993, when his father escaped from the Alamodome with a draw with Pernell Whitaker. Most of the ringside media scored it for Whitaker. The record crowd, about 60,000 Chavez partisans, didn’t boo. They left quietly, also knowing they had just witnessed a great escape. It was a moment when there were some sure signs of erosion in the Mexican icon. JC Superstar was neither super nor a star.

Seventeen years later, the son returns to the scene with a chance to show that he is his own man, a grown-up instead of a Jr.

Even mom couldn’t argue with that.

SAN ANTONIO – Wednesday afternoon in Alamodome’s cavernous but air-conditioned arena, “Latin Fury 15” participants, managers and trainers joined Top Rank’s Bob Arum on stage for their final press conference before Saturday’s card. Some wore jeans, others wore t-shirts, three even wore blazers. But only one had green Chuck Taylors on.

That would be Ireland’s John Duddy, of County Derry in the North, proudly wearing a color that’s as universally associated with Ireland as any color is with any land. Duddy will fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. for the WBC Silver middleweight title in Saturday’s main event.

And yes, Top Rank knows what you might think about that.

“A lot of people say, ‘What the hell is the WBC Silver belt?’” said Bob Arum from the stage on Wednesday. “The winner becomes the WBC mandatory challenger, so it has great significance.”

Duddy confirmed the significance when his turn at the podium came, describing a world title shot – in this case with Sergio Martinez, the middleweight champion – as being a dream of his since childhood. But first he must beat Chavez.

“I’ve had this fight on my mind for a long time,” Duddy said of battling the son of Mexico’s most famous champion. “It’s a crossroads fight for us both.”

One of the themes of this week’s promotion has been Duddy’s family in Northern Ireland, specifically the uncle after whom he was named, John Francis Duddy, who was killed during a demonstration on Jan. 30, 1972 that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” Last week, a 10-volume tribunal report exonerated the Irish citizens killed that day, concluding all were unarmed. Duddy’s uncle, known colloquially as Jackie, will be honored with the tolling of a 10-count before Saturday’s main event.

While last week’s Saville Report brought joy to long-suffering members of Duddy’s family, on Wednesday Duddy emphasized how important it was to him to have their permission before using his prizefight as a way of honoring Jackie Duddy.

“My family were thrilled with this decision,” Duddy said when asked about the tribunal’s finding. “But I was never a part of that (struggle). I don’t want to seem to be jumping on the bandwagon.”

Duddy confirmed, though, that he would be fighting in his uncle’s honor with the blessing of his aunts and uncles Saturday, and also the blessings of his father – who will be in Alamodome.

But neither father nor son is likely to see much green in the Alamo City, at least not without it accompanied by Mexican red and white. Asked if he thought maybe his opponent would be the crowd favorite at an event alternately called “La Furia de Mexico,” Duddy was quick but charming in his answer.

“No maybe about it,” he said. “They better be for Chavez.”

Then he smiled and promised there was a chance he’d convert the crowd and have them “singing ‘Juan’ Duddy” by the end of the night.

SALVADOR SANCHEZ REMEMBERED
Leading Saturday’s “Latin Fury 15” telecast will be Salvador Sanchez II, the nephew of Salvador Sanchez, a Mexican fighting legend who made nine professional appearances in Texas, including four in San Antonio. The younger Sanchez is eager to garner a fraction of the acclaim his uncle won in a career defined by 10 world title fights.

“To be here, where my uncle defended his title, is an honor,” said Sanchez, Wednesday afternoon.

RAUL MARTINEZ WANTS TO BE YOUR CHAMPION
Local interest will also focus itself on Saturday’s second televised card when Raul Martinez and Gabriel Elizondo, two friends who grew up together in San Antonio’s amateur program, put their camaraderie aside and prove there are no friends in the prizefighting ring.

“It’s a great privilege, a great honor, to be fighting on this card,” said Martinez from Wednesday’s podium. “I want to show San Antonio they’ve got a future world champion here.”

Martinez also acknowledged the city’s last world champion, Jesse James Leija, whose Championfit Gym hosted an open workout Tuesday.

ALAMODOME CONFIGURED FOR 15,000
Saturday night, Alamodome will have roughly half its seats curtained-off. An upcoming convention will take the south side of the building, with the north side reserved for boxing. This is great news for local fans. A quick peek at the ringside area Wednesday revealed that upper-deck seats are also covered in curtains, meaning that every seat Saturday will be a good one.

Top Rank officials confirmed ticket sales have been pleasantly brisk, but plenty of seats still remain available.

FRIDAY WEIGH-IN ON THE RIVER
The weigh-in for “Latin Fury 15” will happen along the River Walk at 1:30 P.M. on Friday afternoon at the Arneson River Theatre, just north of La Villita. It is open to the public.

Anyone willing to brave June’s humidity will be rewarded with perhaps the most picturesque setting in which any boxing weigh-in has yet been conducted.

SAN ANTONIO – Tuesday afternoon, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and his new trainer Freddie Roach conducted an open workout for local media that was much more than advertised. Far from the scripted, lather-me-up-for-the-press exercises these events usually comprise, Chavez and Roach worked long and hard. And it looked like one of them needed it.

Chavez (40-0-1, 30 KOs) arrived later than initially planned at Jesse James Leija’s Championfit Gym – part of “Latin Fury 15” fight week festivities – though not for the reasons some might expect. Originally scheduled to walk through the paces before Saturday’s co-main event star Marco Antonio Barrera, Chavez instead had his costar go first so that Chavez could have more time for stretching, shadow boxing and lots of pad work.

Before working on his new charge’s balance, timing and occasionally questionable defense, Freddie Roach answered questions with typical honesty.

“More time would have been better,” Roach said of his short training camp with Chavez. “He’s not lazy. He’s trying. But he doesn’t have all the moves yet.”

Asked to list Chavez’s strengths, Roach treated his guy’s height and reach.

“He has a great jab, but he doesn’t use it as much as I want him to,” Roach said. “He’s not 100 percent there right now.”

If Roach thought he was getting a lazy underachiever in Chavez – a label that has haunted the young Mexican with the country’s most famous name – he was pleased to learn that was not the case.

“He’s actually a very nice kid,” Roach said. “I was really surprised.”

When asked what most concerns him about Ireland’s John Duddy (29-1, 18 KOs), Chavez’s Saturday opponent, Roach was candid.

“Duddy has a pretty good right hand,” he said. “My guy tends to get hit with those.”

Probably a few left hands, too. Once Alex Ariza, Roach’s strength and conditioning coach, was done stretching Chavez and watching him shadow box, Roach put on the hand pads and began a session with Chavez that could best be called instructive. Trainer and fighter looked well-rehearsed and tightly in-sync while doing 1-2s but quickly stumbled on dead patches when their focus turned to hooks and defense.

As Roach promised, Chavez looked particularly susceptible to right crosses, as his left hand strayed low much of the time. More troublesome still were the balance issues Chavez showed while trying to come off the ropes by pivoting leftward on his lead foot. A rudimentary move, the pivot’s requisite weight shift befuddled Chavez enough for Roach to spend the better part of a round on it, belying the merits of Chavez’s pristine record and making ringsiders wonder what will happen if Duddy forces Chavez to the ropes Saturday.

That match will be the main event of a nine-fight card promoter Top Rank will stage at Alamodome, downtown.

MARCO ANTONIO BARRERA BACK IN FIGHTING TRIM
Also present Tuesday afternoon were Mexican three-division world champion Marco Antonio Barrera (65-7, 43 KOs) and undefeated Phoenix hopeful Jose Benavidez (6-0, 6 KOs). Barrera will fight little-known Brazilian lightweight Adailton De Jesus (26-4, 21 KOs) in Saturday’s co-main event, while Benavidez will face Rhode Island’s Josh Beeman (4-6-2, 2 KOs) in the card’s opening bout.

After skipping rope, doing some light shadow boxing and saluting gathered fans, Barrera took a shower, changed and greeted the media, looking trimmer than he had during a press conference last month.

Asked how high his weight had climbed after his loss to Amir Khan 15 months ago, Barrera was truthful if not proud.

“One forty-seven,” Barrera said. “I let it go a little. It was the highest it has ever been. But I have lost the weight slowly, little by little. I feel good.”

SAN ANTONIO – The son of legendary Mexican prizefighter Julio Cesar Chavez was at the Alamodome Thursday morning. He shared the stage with Mexican prizefighting legend Marco Antonio Barrera. He posed for pictures with famous American prizefighters Jesse James Leija and Carlos Hernandez. His name was the most recognizable, though. Even if his resume was the shortest.

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. can take a big step toward finally justifying his celebrity and paychecks next month when he fights Ireland’s John Duddy in the main event of Top Rank’s “Latin Fury 15.” Chavez, who dressed in an open-collared shirt and fashionable jeans that appeared bloodstained, at Thursday’s press conference, said the right things, looked trimmer than usual, and expressed a long-overdue desire to become a great fighter.

“We are going to prove that I am ready to prove that I am ready to fight for a world title,” Chavez Jr. said from the podium.

June 26 will mark Chavez Jr.’s second match in Alamodome, his first as a headliner. And the venue has been good to La Familia Chavez.

“I am happy to be coming back to San Antonio,” Chavez Jr. said. “This is where my father set the attendance record (against Pernell Whitaker). This city has been good to us.”

Top Rank president Todd DuBoef, too, had good things to say about his company’s return to the Alamo City.

“In this show, we felt, nothing better than the Alamodome,” DuBoef said Thursday. “San Antonio is an incredible hotbed for boxing.”

ENTER FREDDIE ROACH
Chavez Jr. and his people seem to realize that John Duddy is by far the best opponent Chavez has faced in his 41-fight career of beating setup men from the Midwest. To prepare for Duddy, then, Chavez Jr. acquired the services of esteemed trainer Freddie Roach and moved his training camp to Los Angeles.

“They’ve been in L.A. the past couple of days,” DuBoef said Thursday.

Asked for an early opinion of his new trainer, Chavez Jr. didn’t wait for a translation, and even switched from Spanish to English.

“Best trainer in the world,” Chavez Jr. said of Roach.

Asked how familiar he was with John Duddy’s style, though, Chavez Jr. was a bit less emphatic.

“I know he is a fighter with a punch,” Chavez Jr. said. “He is strong. He has had many fights at middleweight.”

Next month’s fight will happen at junior middleweight, though, the lowest weight at which Duddy has ever fought. That will be six pounds lighter than Duddy was the night he decisioned Yory Boy Campas at Madison Square Garden in 2006. Chavez Jr. has yet to prove himself anywhere near Campas’ caliber. What, then, does Chavez Jr. believe he’ll have on June 26 that Campas did not?

“Campas didn’t have his youth in that fight,” Chavez Jr. said. “And I am going to be in my best form.”

Finally, Chavez Jr. listed his current weight as 175 pounds. Asked if that were a normal weight for him, one month from a fight, Chavez Jr. and his manager Fernando Beltran were both adamant.

“Better!” said Chavez Jr.

“Much better!” said Beltran.

TOP RANK’S SILENCE STILL GOLDEN
Nothing newsworthy was said Thursday of Top Rank’s negotiations with Golden Boy Promotions for a November fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“Nothing,” said Todd DuBoef, when asked what might be new.

And those rumors that DuBoef is in constant communication with Richard Schaefer to ensure the fight gets made?

“I haven’t had a conversation with him since December,” DuBoef said.