Self Destruct or Fade Away

One of smartest guys I do any work with asked me my rear view mirror thoughts on the weekend and on Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. who quit on the stool suffering his second career loss to Andrzej Fonfara Saturday night.

Questions like why was he ‘fighting with his head down’ and ‘looking for help from the referee’ when he was ‘in a real fight.’ I mentioned in my last blog the Chavez fight looked like it was gonna be ‘one of them bout’s.’

He went on to ask me about Mike Tyson in 1997 and why Mike bit Evander Holyfield. I answered with a similar opinion.

He wanted to go out on his own terms but not the conventional way a fighter does. He let his ego and lack of emotional maturity take over. You can almost say he lost on purpose and on his own terms. He quit. To save face in a bout he had a great fear of losing by KO or on the cards. In his mind he felt if he lost by his own doing he wouldn’t feel as embarrassed in a loss. Fear of failure.

Now Chavez wasn’t quite as extreme as Tyson’s loss but same line of thought. I call it McEnroe syndrome. John McEnroe. He did same thing on the tennis ourt. He would be having a bad game and blame everyone but himself thinking that the people watching him would attribute his loss to his own lack of composure rather than just simply getting out played and performing poorly. To lose by his own hands . A meltdown. I come to the same conclusion about Poland’s Andrew Golota’s bouts against Riddick Bowe where he repeatedly threw low blows in two bouts he was winning in 1996.

The mind is a powerful thing. It separates the greats from the real greats at the highest levels. Now back to Chavez. Hindsight, he wasn’t prepared. He got schooled, yet puzzling in the post fight interview, he claimed he was winning before he quit on the stool. It maybe a stretch to compare Golota and Tyson to the Chavez bout but individual sports are as much a mental if not more than physical game. It’s about control. Some guys never get tested. They bully. I often call a bully fighter a ‘front runner.’ He’s great if he breaks his opponents will but when the opponent doesn’t cooperate, the bully gets ‘heart checked.’ You can see it in bouts when guys start looking for help from the referee. We’ll never know but when Marcos Maidana was getting torched by Floyd Mayweather in the rematch he may have been headed in the same direction as the Tyson and Golota bouts. Fouls and even a bite. Going out on his own terms by disqualification at that very moment in the ring may have been better than simply walking out the completely outclassed fighter in his mind. Only the fighters know.

Going into the biggest fight of all time I doubt Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather will go that route. Mayweather can frustrate opponents, Ortiz and Maidana both come to mind, but one would expect Manny to be too mature for that nonsense at this point of his career.

Both corners are as good as there are in boxing and should calm down their fighters should any nonsense occur. Manny and Floyd are true professionals when they step inside the ropes. As the fight draws closer you can expect the best of both in there. I don’t think either will self destruct inside the ring or fade away. ‘It’s in the number.’ 8 days.

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