NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — A full decade later, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. appears larger than my memory serves. He`s not fat, but at 39, his build feels denser – thicker in his bone structure, wrists, and ankles. His facial features are less sharp, and even the top of his head (a fitting metaphor for someone born into boxing royalty) seems more prominent. Despite this, I find myself questioning whether, under those baggy cotton sweats, he`ll manage to reach the 200-pound cruiserweight limit for his fight with Jake Paul this Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Is this surprising? It shouldn`t be. Chavez Jr.`s career trajectory has consistently been a puzzling riddle.
Don`t misunderstand me. I`m something of a fan, and have been since I interviewed him and his father in 2015 during a training camp at Lake Tahoe. Those conversations provided a vivid insight into what it was like growing up with the most famous name in Mexico, son of its greatest fighter, during a period when his father was often battling addiction. But the years since our talk in Tahoe have seen Chavez Jr. — once the WBC middleweight champion — go just 6-5. Among those losses was one to Anderson Silva — a UFC Hall of Famer, but little more than a novice boxer, and who had already lost to Paul. Chavez Jr. also quit on his stool twice. Eighteen months ago, he was arrested on gun charges before being released into a residential rehab program. His most recent victory came last July against another aging mixed martial artist, Uriah Hall, who took him the six-round distance in Hall`s pro boxing debut. To be honest, though, I still find myself rooting for Junior — just as I do for anyone who offers not just an interview, but a glimpse into their most vulnerable self, which often, after all, is what led them to boxing in the first place.
What`s more, because I do like Julio, I was taken aback by the bout`s opening press conference last month. I`ve heard every kind of pre-fight provocation, going back to Livingstone Bramble calling Ray Mancini `a murderer` after the death of Duk Koo Kim. Fighters will try almost anything for an edge. Yet, Paul operates with great precision. The former Disney kid knows exactly where the emotional wounds are, and how to twist the knife.
`He`s the embarrassment of Mexico …`
`He`s the one who should`ve been on the Disney Channel …`
`I`m going to make him quit like he always does.`
Then, directly to Chavez: `There`s two things you can`t beat: me and your drug addiction.`
Making matters worse, at least for Junior, is his father, whom Paul has inadvertently turned into a co-conspirator in this public taunting. Chavez Sr., seated on the stage, does most of the talking for Junior. `No way, no how can Jake Paul beat my son,` he declares. `I`ve never seen him train like this.`
To which Paul retorts: `What is this, `Bring Your Dad to Work Day`?`
Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. was born in 1962, the son of a violent, alcoholic father, grappling with his own issues with violence and alcohol. As his father`s drinking worsened, the family briefly lived in a boxcar in Culiacán, a city that became known as the seat of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Nevertheless, it`s part of boxing`s unlikely magic that it can transform a destitute child like Chavez (or Roberto Duran or Mike Tyson, for that matter) into something akin to royalty.
`I always had a desire — to be somebody, to be a great fighter,` Senior once told me.
It was a desire of frightening intensity — one that left fighters such as Edwin Rosario, Meldrick Taylor, and Roger Mayweather forever changed by their encounters with Chavez.
But what about his namesake`s desire?
Fans of a certain age recall Junior as the small boy with a red headband — a kind of prince, truly — perched on an uncle`s shoulders as part of his father`s procession to the ring. But Junior himself remembers something different: his father`s struggles with alcohol and cocaine. Given all the cartel figures in Culiacán, one can imagine it felt like growing up in the final act of `Scarface.`
`Alcohol, and the drugs,` Junior told me in 2015 at that Lake Tahoe training camp. `Every day, every hour, every second.`
`My kids lived through a very difficult time in my life with my addiction,` Senior acknowledged at one point, tearfully. `It was very hard on them.`
When he was 12, Junior remembers, local kids would beg his father for money. `If you beat my son,` his father would tell them. `I`ll give you 1,000, 2,000 pesos.`
When Junior won, his father was happy.
`Fighting was the way to get his love?`
`Yes,` he said. `No fight, no love.`
`Are you angry with him?` I asked.
`I have a hard life,` Junior said. `Yes, I`m angry with him.`
Nevertheless, it was Junior who ultimately helped get his father into rehab. In 2011, following his stepmother`s plan, he waited until Chavez Sr. was anesthetized for a routine surgery, then drove him instead to a residential facility. `If not,` his stepmother, Myriam Chavez, commented, `Senior wouldn`t be here today.`
I don`t know how much healing Junior and Senior have achieved in the past decade, but I still ponder why a son of Mexico`s greatest fighter would choose to become a fighter himself. It`s an impossible comparison to win. Chavez Sr. initially thought Junior would quit after a fight or two. Instead, for a time, he was considered an overachiever. Despite having virtually no amateur background, he became a middleweight champion in 2011. The following year, he defeated a genuinely excellent fighter with Olympic credentials in Andy Lee. Months later, with his left eye nearly shut, he came agonizingly close after a 12th-round knockdown of Sergio Martinez. While Martinez survived, Junior earned something significant on the occasion of his first loss: respect. His record then stood at 46-1-1.
Then came his own struggles with alcohol and drugs. As children of addicts are often predisposed to addiction themselves, perhaps it was fate, just as it had been for his father and his father`s father. Or perhaps, it was something else — the reverse side of “no boxing, no love.” Whatever the reason — laziness, depression, or a strange impulse to tarnish the family name — no one could ever accuse Junior of overtraining.
This makes his father`s comment at last month`s press conference — that Junior was training harder than ever for Paul — even more peculiar. On May 19, just five days later, Junior received a text message that was shared with me from his strength and conditioning coach, Chris Camacho:
Julio
Gave this some serious thought and I can`t continue to put the energy into your camp if you are not going to take it seriously. I need to put my energy into other places. I wish you nothing but good things and best of luck on the fight.
Camacho — whose roster of clients includes Gennadiy Golovkin, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, and a host of UFC champions — feels much the same way I do about Junior: he`s likable and pleasant, but prone to mystifying acts of self-sabotage. `We had 16 training sessions scheduled,` Camacho says. `He missed five or six and was usually late by at least half an hour. I like the kid. I really wanted to believe in him. But I care about my last name, my reputation. I wish he would care about his.`
Eleven days before the fight, our interview is scheduled for 8 p.m. at the Brickhouse Boxing Club in North Hollywood. Charlie Huerta, Junior`s trainer since the Hall fight, is deeply apologetic that Chavez is late. `They`re packing up to leave right now,` he says.
In reality, Julio is still waking up. It`s 8:50 p.m. It will be another hour before we sit down. In the meantime, Huerta explains that, while he might not be boxing royalty, he, too, was born into the sport. His father, Mando, runs the Maywood Boxing Club, known for consistently producing tough fighters on the east side of Los Angeles. Huerta himself, a former junior lightweight, went 21-7 as a pro. He`s 38, a year younger than Junior, and trying to build his career as a trainer. With three kids, this isn`t the kind of opportunity you turn down.
I ask what Chavez has been doing for strength and conditioning since Camacho dismissed him. `Mostly, old-school shadowboxing and mitts,` he says. `And some weights.`
`Weights?`
`Like, dumbbells.`
`Sparring?`
`Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,` says Huerta, who estimates Chavez sparred 36 rounds last week.
`Sometimes, it`s hard getting him to the gym,` Huerta concedes. `But once he`s here, he goes 100 percent. And if he`s 100 percent, I don`t see how Jake Paul beats us.`
Fair enough. Perhaps Paul couldn`t withstand a vintage Chavez Jr. body shot. Still, that`s a whole lot of `if.`
Finally, Chavez walks in slowly with a group of assistants and sparring partners. He looks barely awake. He lies down on the ring apron, an assistant working his calves with a massage gun. Then we speak as his hands are being wrapped for his workout.
`Why are you still fighting?` I ask.
`Boxing saved my life.`
`How so?`
`Helped me stop drinking,` he says. `It`s one of the things.`
He also has two children with his wife, Frida, who was previously married to the son of notorious narco-trafficker Joaquín `El Chapo` Guzmán: Julia, 12, and their son, Julio, 4. It`s been 18 months, Junior says, since he had a drink.
I ask about Camacho, his former strength and conditioning coach.
`I still text with him,` he says.
`Then what was the problem?` Here, Huerta steps in. Essentially, Camacho wanted to work four days a week, he explains. Julio only wanted two. And not on Saturdays. And the drive was too long.
`How do you beat Jake Paul?` I ask.
`Throw a lot of punches,` Junior says, seemingly half-asleep. `Train hard.`
`What Paul said at the news conference about you and your father? Did you take it personally?`
`No. I expected that.`
`Why did he want to fight you? Why did he pick you?`
`He thinks I`m old. He wants to take advantage of my situation.`
Age? No. Situation, yes.
It’s Chavez Jr.’s inherent condition, a predicament that runs through the bloodline: no boxing, no love.