Las Vegas — Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. are squaring off in a highly-anticipated contest at T-Mobile Arena tonight. LBS is in attendance covering the fight and reporter Arsen Dadyan will be on the scene. He will be updating this post with thoughts, observations, photos and more from the fights, so keep refreshing this post to see his information.
7:51 pm PT – David Lemieux started this match very slow as he was tagged a few times by Marco Reyes. As the fight progressed, Lemieux changed his approach and started to be more aggressive with his counter punching, connecting and tagging Reyes with head and body shots. Reyes was cut above his right eye after a great combo of punches by Lemieux in the 2nd and then 3rd round. In the 4th round, Lemieux’s right cross knocked out Reyes’ mouth guard. Lemieux looks like he’s in great shape and not gasping for air. I can’t say the same for Reyes as he’s trying hard to get some air all while worrying about the Lemieux’s aggressive and tactical boxing, not to mention the cut over his right eye.
8:22 pm PT – This crowd is going bananas as the fighters are being introduced. A ton of boos for Chavez Jr. Way more boos than cheers.
Round 1: Canelo is aggressive right from the bell and in charge while Chavez Jr is back pedaling. 1:30 to go in the 1st and the crowd is exchanging loud cheers for Canelo and then for Chavez Jr. 1:00 remaining and it’s been no action and shadow boxing for both fighters. As expected, the fans are booing and demanding action.
Scoring: After 1 no action worthy for either fighter but Canelo gets it because he’s the champion and was aggressive.
Round 2: Jr. has Canelo in the ropes as both fighters exchange blows and now the pace is picking up after both fighters were feeling each other out in the 1st round. 1:00 to go and now it’s Canelo with the exchange of a few body and head shots. Jr’s head is red thanks to the left jabs and right uppercuts by Canelo. Jr needs to step up kid defense. He’s out of breath while Canelo isn’t even sitting down.
Scoring: 2-0 Canelo because his aggressive boxing halfway through the round and towards the end.
Round 3: Canelo looks in better shape than Chavez and started to tag Jr with combo punches. It looks like he busted Jr. open from his nose as blood is coming down Chavez’s face. Chavez might have made the weight cut but his conditioning is nowhere near Canelo’s
Scoring: 3-0 Canelo
Round 4: Canelo is just playing with Chavez and just connecting left and right with combos of jabs and uppercuts and a few hooks as well. 1:20 Canelo starts to tag Jr as he has him towards the ropes and is just pounding on him with jab after jab and uppercuts. He hasn’t done a thing to counter it other than just putting up his gloves to kind of stop the punches. His nose is just getting busted. Another dominant round by Canelo. Canelo had yet to sit during the round breaks
Scoring: 4-0 Canelo
Round 5: Mean right by Canelo as he is dominating once again. The audience just exploded after the last couple of combos. Chavez looks out of breath. :30 to go in the round and the audience starts to Chant “Canelo Canelo Canelo”. This has been a 1-sided fight so far. Canelo has yet to sit during the breaks.
Scoring: 5-0 Canelo
Round 6: Chavez is starting to work Canelo as the fans finally have something to cheer for. He has Canelo on the ropes towards the last min of the round. Now is the time for him to show the boxing world why he isn’t just Chavez’s son, but also a great fighter himself….and just like that, Canelo counters and just attacks.
Scoring: 6-0 Canelo
Round 7: A lot of back-and-forth for the 1st part of the round. Canelo is letting Chavez swing away to make it a more entertaining fight instead of a 1 sided fight.
Scoring: 6-1 Canelo
Round 8: Jr. is taking the lead and being aggressive in this round. An inadvertent low blow that the ref told Jr to aim higher. The audience starts to chant “Culero Culero.” with 1 min left in the round. The boo birds are coming out after the round. Some Mexican mariachi music is playing and the entire audience is singing.
Scoring: 6-2 Canelo
Round 9: Not a lot of action really. Just back and forth bs like earlier.
Scoring: 7-2 Canelo
Round 10: Canelo looks like he is coasting and doesn’t need to win any more rounds to win this fight. The audience starts to boo with :40 to go in the round. Very little action in this round as well. Canelo has not sat during the round breaks.
Scoring 8-2 Canelo
They show GGG on the big screen sitting in the front row with his manager and trainer and the audience boos him. He’s sitting in front of Dave Chappelle.
Round 11: 2:20 and Canelo gets Jr with a nice right cross. The audience starts to chant “beso beso beso(kiss)”
Round 11: Canelo 9-2
Round 12: No action for the 1st minute of the final round. 1:20 and the boo birds are out again. The fans are all booing. There is no action with :45 to go. The entire arena is whistling and booing with :20 to go. And it goes 12 rounds as predicted. I just didn’t think that it was going to be such a 1-sided fight.
Throw out the rematch. The only real fight that Canelo has is for him to fight GGG.
120-108 by all 3 judges, all had it 12-0. The crowd is going insane.
