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No good, really bad week for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. & California State Athletic Commission

By Zach Arnold | September 28, 2013

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Andy Foster’s first real crisis has arrived as head of the Sacramento DCA-controlled California State Athletic Commission. In fact, the whole week with Top Rank & Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been one giant embarrassment.

Scott Christ summed up the absurdity here.

Coming off of his suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission due to testing positive for marijuana metabolites, Chavez signed a bout agreement to fight Brian Vera in basically what, on paper, amounted to a squash. The fight was booked after Andy Foster (rightfully) ruled in arbitration that Dan Goossen had not violated his contract with Andre Ward. Thus, Ward couldn’t jump ship to Top Rank and fight JCC. So, what originally looked like a fight scheduled for Staples Center with JCC/Ward turned into JCC/Vera at 163 pounds. Then it went up to 168. Then it went up to 173 pounds.

Then came the rumors of JCC trying to cut weight to make it to 173 (at Azteca gym) for the fight and that Vera allegedly got a 6-figure payoff from Top Rank for his troubles. Plenty of folks in the boxing press wanted action from the California State Athletic Commission to put a stop to the circus. Andy Foster was going to allow the fight to happen as long as there wasn’t a spread of more than 11 pounds in weight between Vera & JCC. So, if Vera showed up at 173, JCC had up to 184 pounds or else the fight would have been called off.

When it came time for weigh-ins, Vera and JCC made the 173 benchmark. At fight time, Chavez was bigger… and Vera was smacking him around enough to where he should have won the contest.

Andy Foster is an MMA guy. He is not a boxing guy. California is a state that is boxing-crazy and driven by boxing revenue much more so than MMA. This is where Andy’s background came into play. He assigned Lou Moret as the referee. Moret, for all intents and purposes, is now the #2 boxing referee in California (behind Jack Reiss). Pat Russell isn’t getting booked as #2 any more. As for the judges assigned to JCC/Vera, you couldn’t have possibly booked a worse crew if you tried: Gwen Adair, Marty Denkin, and Carla Caiz. Yes, of that famous Caiz clan with Raul Sr. and Jr.

Gwen Adair has previously sued the state of California in the past on sexual/racial claims and has gotten settlement(s) treatment. Job security will remain intact as long as there’s a legal avenue to use. Sports Illustrated did a profile article on Gwen Adair in October of 1998, talking about how her mother launched Fatburger and appearances on M*A*S*H. The Los Angeles Times profiled her in November of 2009. They quote Marty Denkin in the piece. They also quote Gwen stating that she wished she got more high-profile bookings. You don’t say.

If you talk to various inspectors and officials down South, they speak of old-timer Marty Denkin as someone who views himself (still) as a political wheeler-and-dealer. His daughter Jackie, despite being on somewhat tenuous political ground, remains a judge.

As for the Caiz clan, Raul Sr. is in political favor. Jr. on the other hand, not so much. Carla is booked as well.

As for one Louis F Moret, he has political juice in the state. For years, he was a member of the board of administration that dealt with California’s public employees retirement system. Otherwise known as the monstrous behemoth named CalPERS. Moret views himself as a political mover-and-shaker close to big wigs like Nancy Pelosi.

Don’t believe me? Read this June 18, 2008 article in The Los Angeles Times titled Pension board member helped fix deal, suit alleges with the sub-headline Louis F. Moret is accused of conspiring to arrange a $48 million dollar South Gate garbage contract.

Che Guevara, the hack who was CSAC’s Chief Athletic Inspector, came from a boxing background. He got his job because he did the wrong thing when it came to throwing others under the bus with the Antonio Margarito hand wrap situation back in 2009. Hell, he got his job promotion because of it. I don’t think that Che, if he was walking the straight and narrow, would have allowed this combination of officials to work a fight like JCC/Vera. I say this bitterly given my utter disgust with the man’s prior on-the-job behavior.

Andy Foster has his first major image crisis on his hands here. Should Andre Ward get past Edwin Rodriguez in November (in Ontario, California), it would appear that HBO will help set up Ward vs. JCC… and that fight will likely happen in California in 2014 — which makes the events that transpired tonight look even worse than they appear to be on the surface. Bet the conversations between Danny Goossen and Bob Arum will be fun for that meeting.

As for Andy Foster, if folks like Gwen Adair will sue to keep their gigs then the only recourse he has left is to put the judges on the agenda for the next commission meeting on October 7th in Los Angeles. Let John Frierson & Martha Shin-Urquidez dispose of the malcontents. Dan Rafael went on ESPN television and ripped Marty Denkin, stating that Marty should have been put out to pasture years ago.

Kevin Iole summed up the situation on Yahoo in a relatively detailed manner. Vera’s camp believes that HBO will book a JCC/Vera rematch. Good luck with that.

Topics: Boxing, CSAC, Media, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

6 Responses to “No good, really bad week for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. & California State Athletic Commission”

  1. bluerosekiller says:

    Very nice piece Zach.
    And MUCH better & a deeper look into the events surrounding the contest than I’ve seen on any of the boxing websites that I frequent.
    IMO the decision was an absolute travesty.
    The scorecards made it clear that virtually EVERYTHING was stacked in Chavez’s favor going into the bout. That it was assured that the only way that he could possibly lose was via KO & even THEN they may have found a way to rob Vera.
    Without whom there would have been no fight BTW.
    He remained patient through all the numerous postponements & the ridiculous ever increasing weight limit, then proceeded to come forward & throw the vast majority of the punches throughout the 10 rounds.
    All this while Chavez gasped for breath from the fourth round on & laid back potshoting. Sure, his were the more powerful, more impressive looking single blows, but there’s just no way that they should have been seen as more worthy than Vera’s steady work rate, effective aggressiveness & command of the ring. His were NOT pitty pat, powder puff punches either. The majority of them were solid, punishing shots as evidenced by the damage done to Chavez’s face.
    But of course, it was for all intents a middleweight vs a full fledged light heavyweight in there, so Vera wasn’t able to rock Chavez in the same way that Chavez was able to him.
    On the plus side for Vera, he did earn a career high payday which is nice for him & his family & he’ll likely get some good offers for future fights because of the increased recognition from his efforts & the controversy.
    But, that doesn’t erase the injustice that was perpetrated on him last night. Not at all.

  2. […] http://www.fightopinion.com/2013/09/28/awful-csac-chavez-boxing/ Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like Loading… This entry was posted in Articles and Videos and tagged brian vera, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., zach arnold. Bookmark the permalink. […]

  3. […] as well as an up close look at the officials appointed to the bout, read Zach Arnold’s: No good, really bad week for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. & California State Athletic Commission. * * * * […]

  4. liger05 says:

    Have not seen the fight but JCC really is a waste of space. The guy is a total loser. His a bad trainer, has a bad attitude and isnt it correct that he refused to a do a fight not weigh-in?

    I did read that he said their would be no rematch as his looking at bigger fights but HBO need to demand he fights Vera again.

    This BS with judges really needs to stop!!

  5. […] But we’ve been down this road before with Moret. He built his political power in California due to his connections with CalPERS, the state’s retirement pension system. The guy was reportedly involved in a $48 million dollar garbage contract. […]

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