On 9/28/13 HBO telecast Bryan Vera 23, 6 ,0 with 14 KOs, fighting at his walk around weight [171.2] against Mexican hero-brat Julio Caesar Chavez Junior 46, 1, 1,1 with 32 KOs, who scaled 172.4 the previous day and was looking like 190 at fight time.
For some reason HBO did not get these guys on the scale before the fight. This thing had been renegotiated numerous times and figured to be a brawl. Vera was announced to boos and Chavez to fanatical applause.
Technical Points
There was almost no clinching, for which bother fighters are to be commended.
These throwback style fights, that seem to belong in the 1970s, are becoming more common as the sport’s athletes try to compete with the balls-out MMA fighters for the media spotlight.
Vera was well-served by trainer Ronnie Shields who did an excellent job in the corner, his finger ever on the pulse of the fight. Vera stayed active throughout and showed good bodywork. He was extremely well conditioned and pumped away with his sloppy jab to good effect. His left uppercut and chopping overhand right were particularly effective. As a ringside commentator noted, Vera ‘Did not get the memo that he was supposed to lose.’ Bryan finished some combos with a good power jab and finished the fight actually moving his head and daring the ghost like Chavez to hit him.
Chavez has a masterful hook and is able to feint the jab and hook, or feint the hook and jab. He had a huge power edge but poor conditioning and stayed back on the ropes, literally running from the smaller man the entire fight. How often do you see the big puncher run? However, both Chavez’s hook and his underrated right cross were devastating, and the fight was made more epic by the thought on everybody’s mind that Chavez could end it in one punch. But he did not. He only rocked Vera once. When Chavez was on his game he used crushing bodywork, set up behind a bullying wing block.
The Bout
Vera chased Chavez around and lumped him up. In the last few rounds Chavez was in deep water, face looking like raw meat, resorting to pleas for the referee to stop the action and call Vera for various non-existent fouls. The ref said before the fight that body punches would be judged above the hip not the artificial belt line. He was good to his word. Chavez fought with the heart of a rabbit and the mouth of lawyer. It is sad to see that the son of the greatest Mexican fighter of all time is not even a man, but a whining boy.
The Game
I scored the bout and came to the exact same conclusion as the HBO team, that Vera won 96 to 94. The score was even on my card for almost half of the fight, with Vera not pulling away until the last two rounds. The three corrupt judges scored it unanimously for Chavez, by a margin as wide as 98 to 92. This is how you fix fights; not in the dressing room as Hollywood would have you believe, but at ringside. When it was over Vera owned the arena and Chavez’s own fans booed him. Even Chavez’s female entourage were convinced that he was about to fall in the last rounds and shocked when he was given the meaningless decision.
This was another nail in the boxing coffin. But, we were able to witness what a heroic effort truly is, and, as well, how meaningless heroism is in our corrupt and morally famished society.
Bryan Vera is a man.
There have been some pretty ridiculous decisions in MMA as well, though most pundits attribute this to the judges having a lack of understanding of the game to be able to call the action properly. However, as I understand it, a lot of these Boxing judges also judge MMA. Could there be a correlation between the often wacky and nonsensical MMA scores that are made, and those that are done as a matter of course in Boxing?
I think in MMA it is mostly poor understanding of the sport by boxing judges. Remember, the same commissions oversee both sports. Read my Old Men Talking, Young Men Fighting article, for a case study in Maryland. In boxing it is about being bought and paid for. Judges receive a small nominal fee. They get their position by appointment because they know someone who knows someone. That someone is often a promoter who has a lot of cash to spread around because he is not paying his fighters jack unless their middle-name is 'Money'. This is how fights are fixed. In the 1950s fights were fixed like this to move TV darlings at the expense of less charismatic fighters. Today you cannot make a big money fight unless it involves a Mexican or Mexican-identified Mexican-American. Being Puerto Rican or American Latino with some Anglo roots does not bring much Mexican beer money to the table. Ali benefitted from this late in his career. A fighter had to KO him which was impossible, or dish out a father-and-son scale whooping to get a decision over Ali. That is because there was a tacit understanding among all involved that Ali was the guy bringing the bank. The opponents know this too. Vera was fighting for pride, spitting in the eye of the rigged game and its potbellied riggers. He had to KO a bigger man with a watermelon sized blockhead. This robbery at least brings him a better HBO payday the next time out.