From a Sympathetic Figure to a Pariah: The Travails of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr became a sympathetic figure after the Nevada State Athletic Commission slapped him with a $900,000 fine in March of 2013.

The fine was for a failed drug test following his bout the previous September with Sergio Martinez. His post-fight urine specimen showed trace elements of the metabolite associated with cannabis. Chavez Jr did not dispute the test result. He acknowledged smoking a joint nine days before the fight.

The overwhelming reaction was that the fine was beyond excessive; it was draconian. It was so over-the-top that Chavez Jr was seen as the good guy and the Commission seen as a despotic tribunal. As a boy, Chavez Jr had often accompanied his namesake father to the ring and when he turned pro, he played off his bloodline by wearing his father’s trademark red headband on his ring walks. As the son of the most revered boxer in Mexican boxing history, Chavez Jr, at this point in his career, had a huge fan base.

What was not widely reported was that this was Chavez’s second offense. In 2009, he had tested positive for a banned diuretic following his 10-round middleweight match in Las Vegas with Troy Rowland (underneath Pacquiao-Cotto). That infraction cost him $10,000. Also not widely reported was the fact that prior to meeting Sergio Martinez he had been arrested in Los Angeles for DUI and driving without a license, for which he purportedly spent 13 days in jail.

Those lapses in judgment pale in comparison to the pickle in which Julio Cesar Chavez Jr now finds himself.

On Wednesday of last week, four days after coming up short in his bout with Jake Paul, losing a 10-round decision, Chavez was arrested by ICE agents while riding a scooter in front of a home in Studio City, an upscale enclave in Los Angeles County. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security which was created by an act of Congress in 2002.

Chavez Jr was arrested for overstaying his visa and lying on a green card application. A green card is a form of identification for immigrants that identifies the holder as a lawful permanent U.S. resident.

Few would consider these misrepresentations a serious crime, but the Department of Homeland Security cast a darker shadow over Chavez Jr with a press release dated July 3, the date of his arrest.

Referencing Chavez Jr as a criminal illegal alien, Homeland Security reported that there was a warrant out for his arrest in Mexico for his involvement in organized crime and that he had been arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on Jan. 7, 2024, on a charge related to the manufacture and trafficking of illegal weapons in a case that was still pending (an arrest that escaped the gaze of the news media; make of that what you will).

Claudia Sheinbaum, the President of Mexico, confirmed that there was indeed a warrant out for Chavez Jr in Mexico which she said stemmed from an investigation that began in 2019. She said the Mexican police hadn’t attempted to bring him to justice because the boxer spent most of his time in the United States, outside their jurisdiction.

Chavez hails from Culiacan where there is a bronze statue of his famous father. Culiacan, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, has long been identified with the illegal drug trade, a major producer of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and, increasingly, fentanyl.

It figured that if Julio Cesar Chavez Jr was involved in organized crime, it had something to do with the Sinaloa Cartel.

The connection came through his wife (some say his ex-wife) Frida Munoz.

Frida Munoz

Frida, who reportedly has 68k followers on Instagram, was formerly in a relationship with Edgar Guzman Lopez and bore him a daughter. Edgar Guzman Lopez, who died with a confederate in a hail of bullets on the outskirts of Culiacan in 2008 in what many believe was a case of mistaken identity, was the son of the infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, currently serving a life sentence at a high-security prison in Colorado, and was reportedly El Chapo’s chosen successor.

Truth be told, it would be hard for a prominent sportsman in Culiacan to go about his business without occasionally rubbing shoulders with members of the Cartel. Search the web and you can find pictures of the great Julio Cesar Chavez Sr, in his fighting days, pictured with an alleged Cartel member, but no one ever suggested that El Gran Campeon profited from the illegal drug trade. If one scrubbed away every boxer who had friends in the rackets from the Boxing Hall of Fame, the Hall would be far less cluttered and could free up space for an AirBnB.

According to an Associated Press story, officials at Homeland Security determined that Chavez should be arrested June 27, a day before the fight. It’s unclear why ICE agents waited until a few days after the fight to facilitate the arrest. The boxer would have been very easy to find. A cynic would assume that someone connected with the promotion had enough clout to keep law enforcement at bay until the receipts had been counted.

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Julio Cesar Chavez Jr was a 17-year-old junior lightweight when he made his pro debut in Culiacan in 2003. Climbing the ladder, he was matched very carefully as were many boxers before him with marketable names (Marcel Cerdan Jr comes quickly to mind).

Chavez was undefeated in 44 fights with one draw when he captured the WBC world middleweight title with a majority decision over Germany’s Sebastian Zbik in Los Angeles. Three successful defenses followed before he was shorn of his title by Argentina’s Sergio Martinez who weathered a dramatic rally by the Mexican in the final round to win a lopsided decision. But even before his first defeat, the bloom was fading on the rose.

Chavez struggled to make weight for his second title defense against veteran Marco Antonio Rubio, a recurrent theme for the remainder of his career, begetting talk that he was lazy. His post-Martinez fight in Los Angeles with Texas journeyman Brian Vera, contracted for 168 pounds, was restructured from a 12-rounder to a 10-rounder at the catch-weight of 173. Chavez got the nod from the three Southern California judges, a decision widely assailed as a heist.

Two fights later, after a rematch with Vera that Chavez won without controversy, he was manhandled by Polish light heavyweight Andrzej Fonfara who out-worked him for nine lopsided rounds before Chavez quit on his stool, telling his trainer Joe Goossen that he had hurt his right leg and couldn’t continue.

Despite that sad showing, Chavez’s name still curried sway, so much so that he reaped a lucrative match with Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. They fought in Las Vegas before a sellout crowd at the MGM Grand on Cinco de Mayo weekend, 2017.

The bout was a snoozefest. Chavez fought to survive, rather than to win, and lost every round.

Chavez would have one more bout against an established pro and that would come on Dec. 20, 2019 in Phoenix against former two-time middleweight title-holder Daniel Jacobs. The bout was moved from Las Vegas to Phoenix when Chavez refused to adhere to the Nevada commission’s edict that he submit to random drug testing.

Chavez weighed in nearly five pounds over the super middleweight limit, but the fight was a go when he agreed to give Jacobs $1 million of his $3 million purse. (Jacobs had the option of fighting Gabriel Rosado who was on standby if the match fell out.)

Once again Chavez would quit on his stool. He was bleeding from his nose and from a cut above his left eye when he retired after five rounds. When Chavez left the ring, noted ESPN’s Dan Rafael, he was jeered and pelted with debris, an ugly scene. Yahoo’s Kevin Iole called Chavez’s showing disgraceful and branded him an entitled brat with “none of the blue-collar work ethic that made his father a legend.”

Chavez would fight only once in the 42 months leading into his contest with Jake Paul. In that bout, his fourth as a cruiserweight, he won a 6-round decision over former MMA star Uriah Hall.

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Julio Cesar Chavez the elder, who turns 63 in a few days, has not commented directly on his son’s predicament. He’s no stranger to family trauma. Julio Sr’s older brother Rafael Chavez Gonzalez was fatally shot in a home invasion in Culiacan in 2017.

Before crucifying Chavez Jr we should allow him his day in court. His attorney Michael Goldstein calls the allegations against him outrageous, mere grandstanding to suit the anti-immigrant agenda of a certain someone in the White House. Moreover, it isn’t absurd to think that someday Julio Cesar Chavez Jr will become a sympathetic figure once again, if only in the eyes of his Mexican countrymen. Stranger things have happened. But that day, if it arrives, is likely a long way off and it will be shocking if we ever see Chavez Jr in the prize ring again.

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Note: Regarding that $900,000 fine, Chavez’s attorneys succeeded in getting it reduced to $100,000, still a rather harsh penalty for marijuana. After Nevada legalized marijuana for recreational use in 2016, the Nevada Athletic Commission removed it from its list of banned substances.

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