This past Saturday night I attended a wedding so I didn’t get to watch Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. live as it happened. Like any good 21st century sports fan, however, I did sneak peaks at my phone throughout the night to see what news on the bout I could glean from outlet play-by-play reports, Twitter, and internet forums.
As I did I was inundated by trashing of Chavez Jr., expressions of astonishment at how decisively he seemed to be losing the fight, and outright mocking of the former champ. The next morning I saw more fun at the expense of Chavez Jr. as well as complaints of wasted money on the pay-per-view in the form of memes passed along on social media and through group text message chains.
Then, I watched the fight for myself and couldn’t understand the anger and shock I’d read from fans and professional media members alike. Yes, the unanimous decision victory for Canelo was one-sided.
Of course it was. Savvy boxing observers knew it was never going to be anything else but one-sided in favor of the ginger Mexican.
Canelo is a half-decade younger than Chavez, stronger, faster, harder-hitting and more skilled of a fighter. We knew all that going into the fight.
The better, younger, stronger, more skilled fighter won with relative ease. What a shock.
It isn’t Chavez’s fault if fans naively bought into promotional hype building this fight as some type of significant, close contest. The win for Alvarez was such a sure thing, in fact, that Golden Boy promotions already booked his next fight – the real challenge – a Mexican Independence Day mega bout against Gennady Golovkin.
So, Alvarez beat Chavez decisively. Of course he did.
Still, unlike 67% of Alvarez’s other opponents, Chavez Jr. made it to the final bell. There were no 10-8 rounds, no knockdowns, even though Jr. ate huge shots to the chin, nose, and temple from the first round, onward.
Chavez Jr. stood up to punch and round after big punch and long round from Alvarez and got a few licks in of his own when Alvarez got too cocky. Chavez Jr. was led to the slaughter in this match up but refused to die. He fought smart in order to hang around long enough to give himself a puncher’s chance, late. That was really ever his only shot at winning and it didn’t work out.
But let’s make it clear – Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. lost because his opponent is a much better fighter, end of story. Making fun of or getting mad at a fighter for simply not being a better fighter than his opponent is pretty ignorant.
Wanting them to fight recklessly, open themselves up to more punishment in the form of counter shots, simply for spectator titillation, is callous. None of Chavez’s interweb critics, fans or supposedly professional media members alike, could likely stand up to even one round of the punishment he took, not even for twice the money he made.
They also certainly wouldn’t ever have the guts to insult him to his face. The fight was made and smart fight fans knew it wasn’t a very good or significant bout.
If you’re critical of the fight taking place to begin with, fine. Insulting the fighters who had to go through 12 rounds of combat, however, is silly.
Just be glad that Alvarez is finally set to face Golovkin before the Kazakh warrior turned 40.
Dense Dana
So, the UFC and Dana White are once again doing the opposite of promoting one of their biggest stars. This time the Donald Trump BFF is back to bashing Nate Diaz.
On the heels of Diaz calling for a rubber match with McGregor, or more money to fight the likes of Tony Ferguson for yet another tin interim UFC title belt, White says that he doesn’t know how much of a draw Diaz is without Conor McGregor. Leaving aside the strangeness that White isn’t eager to test his curiosity out by slating Diaz for another bout, his statement’s implication is still flat on arrival.
Diaz is a proven huge pay-per-view draw and has also drawn big network television ratings, going back years. So, that’s that.
As for the singularity of Diaz’s or anyone else’s star, well no one person and no UFC card is an island. If Dana is genuinely curious as to how big of a draw Nate is without McGregor, he must be downright dying to know how big of a draw McGregor is without Diaz…or without a fight against the best featherweight in history (Jose Aldo) after nearly a year of promotion and a budget-busting worldwide tour…or without Conor being on the first-ever Madison Square Garden UFC card with two other titles on the bill with history itself as the stakes.
Look, as usual, there’s nothing genuine about White’s statement. It’s weaponized insinuation meant to take advantage of fan ignorance and gullibility to drive down the asking price and diminish the independence of a fighter. The UFC has a history of going after Diaz and any other fighter who deigns to criticize them or speak out vocally about pay.
When Diaz and his camp were seeking to renegotiate his contract a few years ago, White came out with the laughable claim that Diaz didn’t move the needle of fan interest, despite the fighter’s proven success of drawing big television ratings and the promotion’s failure to capitalize on that popularity by slotting him in pay-per-view main events.
The UFC also then broke the rules of its dubious official rankings by dropping Diaz from the lightweight division’s top-10 while they negotiated despite his having the votes and meeting all of the promotion’s own criteria for inclusion.
This type of bullying and bully pulpit false preaching is what you get when a promotion effectively regulates itself, from drug testing to rankings to titles, the way the UFC does. Of course, it isn’t just the outspoken and critical Diaz that the UFC and Dana White have a tendency to try to disparage, tactically.
By and large, White doesn’t promote UFC athletes who show even flashes of independence from the promotion, no matter how big stars they are. Instead, he throws them under the bus.
He did it with Jon Jones back when Bones had the temerity not to fight a brand new and completely different opponent on short notice in defense of his hard-earned world light heavyweight title back in 2012. White spent the lead up to welterweight champ Tyron Woodley’s last title fight bashing him, telling him to shut up and hurling gendered insults at the KO artist, family man, entrepreneur, television broadcaster, and community activist.
White and the UFC spent the post-fight press conference after uber company man and G.O.A.T. contender Georges St-Pierre after his last bout, in 2013, trying to keep the fighter from the presser and bashing him in his absence in front of the cameras and microphones. St-Pierre’s only offense was suggesting he might take time out, after over a decade in the company, from competing after his controversial five-round decision win over Johny Hendricks that night.
The truth is plain for all interested in seeing that the only principle more central to Dana White’s company philosophy than selling tickets and drawing viewers to the UFC is keeping its athletes in line. The second any of these so-called independent contractors who are made to sign away their name and likeness rights in perpetuity, who are mandated uniforms, who have no collective seat at the table to negotiate royalty rates for licensing deals, who have no pensions and no year-round healthcare, and who enjoy a much smaller percentage of revenue for their year-round work than do most other athletes of major sports leagues like the NFL, MLB, and NBA, bring up topics like pay, benefits, and collective bargaining, or who even say no to a proposed fight or date from the UFC, they are often disparaged aggressively by the man who is supposed to promote them. It’s as consistent as it is cruel and backwards.
Back to Diaz in particular – he has one of the most dedicated followings in MMA, and multiple UFC performance and rating and PPV buy records to his name. He has proven big numbers and is a major draw.
If the UFC and Dana White are not offering him enough money to make fighting appealing to the consummate warrior, that says a lot more about them than it does about Diaz. I guess what I’m saying is, don’t buy wolf tickets from promoters.
Sometimes they’ll tell you Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. will be a good fight. Other times, they might make a facile argument that huge stars and the toughest athletes on earth aren’t draws or don’t want to fight.
In both those cases, and in most others, promoters are lying to you. Enjoy the fights, appreciate the athletes, just beware the moving mouth of a hype man.
About the author:
Elias Cepeda is a host of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Rounds Podcast, a staff writer at FloCombat, and has a weekly column for The UG Blog.
