Maybe in their fighting primes, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. would have been capable of roughing up Robert Garcia and forcing him to submit to defeat.
Not 30 years later. Not when defending one of his erratic sons. And not even in Mexico.
In a dressing-room showdown between the odds-on favorite as Trainer of the Year and the Mexican fighting legend, it was Garcia who proclaimed victory over the hostile Chavez Sr. by insisting that the Garcia-trained Misael “Chino” Rodriguez (14-0, 7 KOs) was not going to risk his unbeaten record while venturing to Pachuca, Mexico, to fight Chavez Sr.’s overweight son, journeyman Omar Chavez (41-8-1, 28 KOs).
Omar Chavez was obligated by the fight contracted to make weight for the scheduled 168-pound clash by meeting a next-day weight limit. Instead, Chavez came in more than eight pounds heavier than that figure, prompting Garcia to dig in and say his boxer Rodriguez would not fight.
In a video interview recapping the events, Garcia said he at one point was threatened with arrest for not sending his fighter to the ring while also getting an earful from the elder Chavez.
“Only in Mexico could you be arrested for not taking a fight,” former 140-pound titleholder Chris Algieri said on Monday’s episode of ProBox TV’s “Top Stories.”
Algieri said he found the arguing between Garcia and Chavez Snr more interesting than the scrapped fight given the reputations of each man. Garcia has previously trained Algieri.
“He doesn’t care … he protects his fighter,” Algieri said of Garcia, who keeps junior bantamweight Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, unbeaten junior middleweight Vergil Ortiz Jr., 140-pound champion Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela and former unified 140-pound champion Jose Ramirez in his Riverside, California, gym.
“If [Garcia] had a funny feeling that something was going awry, he has no problem walking away. You’re not going to bully a guy like Robert Garcia, who’s been around a long time and is a former world champion. Looking at being Trainer of the Year, he cares about his charges.”
Meanwhile, the “Top Stories” panel aimed mostly disgust at Chavez Sr.’s enabling of his overweight son, the brother of notoriously reckless Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
“As far as the Chavez boys, there’s always drama – coming [to weigh in] late, blowing weight. That doesn’t surprise me. These are the things that usually happen with the Chavez boys.”
Former welterweight titleholder Paulie Malignaggi said the depth of Garcia’s conviction in keeping his fighter safe shined in this moment.
Malignaggi said other trainers would’ve put their fighter in the ring with Omar Chavez to ensure purse money was coming in.
“Guys like Robert Garcia deserve a lot more credit than you think,” given the propensity to guarantee that everyone would get paid, Malignaggi said.
On the other hand …
“This guy’s sons lived up to nothing,” Malignaggi said of Chavez Sr. “Stop eating, bro! You’re making a mockery of the last name. The fact [that Senior] was arguing over this, he’s enabling his sons when he should’ve been shoving his boot up his son’s ass.”
Malignaggi said missing even the second-day weight check so badly was “bananas … but it doesn’t surprise me. They show up like fat slobs all over the place.”
However, “Top Stories” analyst Timothy Bradley Jr. said the fact that Chavez made the original weight limit should’ve been enough to make the fight happen.
“This [stuff] is soft,” Bradley said of Rodriguez’s withdrawal. “It’s not like it never happens.”
Fighters are not always obligated to make a second-day weight limit, and in some cases, they rehydrate more than 20 pounds from their day-before weight while standing on the scale.
“Nobody told [Chavez] to sign the contract. … When they say there’s was a rehydration clause, you know if you’re getting too full,” Malignaggi argued. “What are we doing here? Why is the father upset at Robert Garcia?”
“Good thing it was Robert Garcia there,” Algieri said. “He understands the culture. Robert has balls.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
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