Chavez Jr. vs Zbik (6/4)

Chavez Jr. vs Zbik (6/4) Zbik recently got the middleweight belt for free. The WBC confiscated the belt from Martinez, as he had refused to fight his mandatory fight. That fight was against Zbik. I HIGHLY doubt that he was afraid to fight Zbik. He likely vacated the belt because he knew that fight would generate little to no interest outside of Germany and why would he want to fight for his belt in the other guys country for a small payday. Martinez did get the Silver belt given to him, I think. Really who cares. Zbik is your standard German fighter. He has an okay jab when he uses it, not that he seems to all that often in situations where he should. He's a straight ahead fighter with little lateral movement and little head movement. He does sport an undefeated record but it is a laundry list of nobodies and tomato cans. Even against those dubious fighter he still has only managed to get 10 KO's of his 30 victories. Chavez Jr. has spend most of his boxing career living off of his fathers name. (if you don't know who Julio Cesar Chavez is... Chavez Jr. fought and beat a bunch of tomato cans as well but does have a few decent wins. This will be his third fight under Freddie Roach, and it seems that he's buckled down and gotten serious about boxing. Not that we will ever think of him in the same light as his father. So we have two undefeated fighters fighting for what is basically a vacated belt. I really was thinking that Zbik had a decent chance in this fight but on further reflection, I've changed my mind. Some of the factors that led to this where. 1. This is Zbik's first real fight outside of Germany. 2. This will be a partisan crowd. (Mexicans love boxing and LOVE Chavez even more and that includes Mexican/American fans) 3. Freddie Roach (though I did see him lose one recently.) I believe that Zbik will have to clearly win more then 7 rounds to get the decision. If it is close, Chavez Jr. will likely get the nod. The other thing I noticed about Zbik is that he's open to body shots and fades late. Chavez is a very good body puncher and has heavy hands. I think he'll be clearly the bigger guy in the ring and his improved skills will get him though this fight. 2.1 units to win 1 Chavez Jr.

It could be argued that Zbik won 7 or more rounds but of course it wasn't enough to get the victory. Chavez is so open to punches its a joke, as soon as he fights someone with some power its lights out for him. Luckily we knew that Zbik wasn't powerful and that partisan crowd would work in our favor. Didn't hurt that the introduced his father an ALL TIME LEGEND of boxing prior to the fight.

well played. i had zbik 7-5 and was very close on 2 rounds i figured to chavez jr.. i understand judging professional boxing isnt the same as amature scoring, but hard to justify ledderman's scorecard of 116-112 (same score as one of the 3 judges), especially when he was outpunched 9-3 rounds and 2-1 overall. zbik did leave his body open the entire fight and took some hard body shots as the fight went on. regardless, i think he wins unanimously had the identical fight played out in munich. looking back on the thread here post-fight, have to agree with listed points 1 and 2 as the main factors... zbik outside of germany for the first time and walking into LA vs. chavez. wouldve taken an enormous performance from zbik barring a knockout, of which he was practically incabable, just to overcome the setting of the fight. most importantly, from a market perspective, a good price on chavez at -210.

Yes, you could score the fight that way. The one comment from Roy Jones Jr. was that he could hear Zbik grunting and making sounds of pain when Chavez was landing. That does effect the judges. It isn't all about the quantity of punches landed. It is often about the effective punches. A lot of Zbik's punches where of the slapping kind and often judges don't count those much. Clean, EFFECTIVE punches is the criteria. Like I said, and the way you scored it, if Zbik had been given the nod, it wouldn't have surprised me at all.

Excellent forecast of the fight is about as big an understatement as I can make since a post review of the fight is just the same phrases except in the past tense. You know that guy on the Wendy's commercial who says "You nailed it" because their new fries are so good? He's full of crap. YOU nailed it.