Beristain says Chavez Jr. was eating before Canelo fight

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Trainer Nacho Beristain contradicts what Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been saying about him not eating in the last 2 weeks before his fight last Saturday night against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Beristain says he saw Chavez Jr. in in process of making the 164 ½ pound catchweight for the fight.

Chavez Jr. ended up throwing very few punches in the fight in the process of losing a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision to Canelo. The judges scored every round to the Golden Boy Promotions star in giving him the ‘W’ by the scores 120-108, 120-108 and 120-108. Chavez Jr. said he was too weak to throw punches from his struggles to make the strict 164.5 catchweight contract weight. There was a stiff $1 million per pound weight penalty for the fight.

“I thought that at some point Julio was going to come out to throw blows and it did not happen,” said Beristain to ESPN Deportes. “He says he did not eat. I saw him eating egg whites. He looked well. I do not want to contradict him. He says he felt bad, but I did not have much trouble to put him to the weight,” said Beristain.

In fairness to Chavez Jr, he looked badly weight drained for the Canelo fight. It’s nice that Beristain saw Chavez Jr. eating egg whites, but there are very few calories in egg whites. That’s pure protein. There’s no fat or carbohydrates in egg whites. All you had to do to see that Chavez Jr. was weak was to look at how thin he was. I know is the first fight for Beristain to train Chavez Jr., but if he looked at some old tape of Chavez Jr. during his best years of his career, he’d see that he normally didn’t looked emaciated the way he was for the Canelo fight.

It’s unclear whether Beristain is distancing himself from the physical condition that Chavez Jr. was in when he came into the ring or what. But it’s impossible to look at how thin Chavez Jr. was for the Canelo fight and not think that he was too thin to put up a fight.

”He says that he wants to fight in 168 pounds with (Daniel) Jacobs. We will see why that fighter is good, meanwhile we must continue to suffer defeat,” said Beristain.

Chavez Jr. recently surprised the boxing world by saying that he wants to fight former WBA middleweight champion Danny Jacobs at super middleweight. Chavez Jr. believes that by fighting the 30-year-old Jacobs and beating him at 168, he can show the fans that he really was weight drained. Chavez Jr. believes that a win over Jacobs will put him in a fight against the winner of the Canelo vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight. Chavez Jr. would only be 4 pounds heavier for the Jacobs fight than the 164lbs that he weighed in for the Canelo fight. Will 4 pounds make enough of a difference for Chavez Jr. to emerge victorious over Jacobs? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Beating Jacobs might not be enough for Chavez Jr. o get a rematch with Canelo. I think it might take more than beating Jacobs, who lost his last fight to Golovkin. Chavez Jr. might need to put together a series of big wins over guys from the super middleweight division for him to have a chance of getting a rematch against Canelo. Golden Boy might be willing to give Chavez Jr. a rematch with Caneli if he can win a world title by beating someone like James DeGale or Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez. Chavez Jr. would likely be a longshot to beat Ramirez or DeGale.

Jacobs would pose a lot of problems for Chavez Jr. because of his size, speed and power. Jacobs is probably more of a super middleweight at this point in his career than a true middleweight. There are a lot of rumors out there that Jacobs rehydrated to 185 for the Golovkin fight on March 18. If that’s true, then Chavez Jr. won’t have a weight advantage over Jacobs. He’ll have to beat him the old fashioned way by standing in the pocket and brawling. We already saw in the Golovkin-Jacobs fight that Jacobs isn’t going to stand and trade. He’s going to box most of the time. Chavez Jr. would need to chase Jacobs around the ring for 12 rounds if he wants to beat him.

“In the last two weeks, I ate very little. Last week, I did not eat almost anything,” said Chavez Jr. to ESPN Deportes. “Nobody thought I would make the weight, but that caused me to not have energy. My mind wanted to fight, but my body didn’t respond to me. I had condition but not the strength. It was undoubtedly the worst performance of my career,” said Chavez Jr.

The fighter is the one that decides whether he feels he was weigh drained or not. I don’t think a trainer can tell you what a fighter is feeling. If Chavez Jr. says he was weight drained for the Canelo fight, then you have to believe him. In looking at how painfully thin Chavez Jr. was for the fight, it’s not hard to believe that he was weight drained. Is that Beristain’s fault or Chavez Jr’s strength coach Memo Heredia. Chavez Jr. probably should have started taking weight off a lot sooner for the fight.

If Chavez Jr. was already badly overweight before he started training camp, then he should have worked on his conditioning ahead of time to lose 20-30 pounds before he started training. In hindsight, Chavez Jr. might have needed more time to take the weight off comfortably. If Chavez Jr. had fought Canelo in September of this year instead of May, he would have had plenty of time to take the weight off slowly to get down to the 164.5lb catchweight to keep from being weakened from the weight loss. The boxing fans would have been happier for sure if Chavez Jr. had been in good shape for the fight because they would have seen a better fight.

“I made a super human effort to make the weight. That’s why Oscar De La Hoya and Canelo asked me to get down to that weight,” said Chavez Jr. “They knew that it was going to kill me.”

Chavez Jr. isn’t going to make things better by complaining about why he thinks he lost the fight. The boxing world saw the fight, and they’re going to believe what they saw of him rather than the excuses that he’s making now. Chavez Jr. is going to have to hit the reset button on his boxing career and put some wins together, and hope the fans will slowly come back. Fighting Jacobs would be a risky fight for Chavez Jr. If he wants to gamble by taking such a risky fight like that, I think Jacobs would accommodate him. But I doubt that a win over Jacobs would be nearly enough for Chavez Jr. to get a rematch with Canelo or a fight against Golovkin. Even if Chavez Jr. beat Jacobs, a lot of casual boxing fans wouldn’t know about the win, because they’re likely not going to want to see Chavez fight him because he’s not popular like Canelo.