By Julian Fortaleza
As the end of April dawns upon us, May brings with it a month of fights that will quench boxing fans thirst for exciting matchups that the sport is lacking in recent years. On May 27th two top welterweights in Errol Spence Jr. and Kell Brook are looking to shake up current landscape of the welterweight division. However, 3 weeks before, on May 6th Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is facing his arch-nemesis, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Both were born and raised in Mexico and look to lock up their boxing-mad nation’s future with a win over the other.
photo by boxingscene/boxnation
In his most recent bout Chavez Jr. won a decision in front of a small crowd at Monterrey Arena against Dominik Birtsch of Germany. Alternatively, Canelo’s most recent fight was a body shot knockout of Britain’s Liam Smith on HBO pay-per-view. The difference in the following of their most recent fight was an exhibition of the boxing community’s love of Canelo and distaste for Chavez Jr. However, it was not always this way. At the beginning of their careers the polar opposite was true. Fans would flock to see the son of the most popular Mexican boxer of all time and Canelo was yet to make a name for himself in the ring. As time passed their careers appeared as though they would converge but promotional politics had kept them apart while they both rose to middleweight stardom.
With both fighters having held middleweight titles in their careers’ it seemed like 2012-2013 would be the ideal time for a bout but unexpected losses for both men had shown that the timing was not right. While Canelo lost to Floyd Mayweather, Chavez Jr. fell by decision to Segio Martinez, but not before nearly matching his father’s St.Patrick’s Day TKO of Meldrick Taylor. The bout between Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is just weeks away and is ready to rock the middleweight division.