At the end he was a lot less pretty and a lot more real than he was at the beginning.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. looked like a fighter Saturday night at Staples Center, and he had to, because Sebastian Zbik had no interest in dancing with stars or anyone else.
The two could have staged this WBC middleweight championship in a cubicle (nobody knows phone booths anymore).
Zbik, proving himself to be far more than just a high-yield Scrabble word, outpunched and outmaneuvered Chavez through the first four rounds.
Chavez, cracking the German with some body shots that wound up south of the Danube, went deep into the recesses that you have to visit on nights like this, and he looked quite at home there.
The judges said Chavez won the final three rounds. Their cards also said that he had to.
He wound up winning a majority decision (7-5 in rounds, 8-4 and 6-6) and thus earned his first belt in the same city his dad won his, in 1985 against Mario Martinez in the Olympic Auditorium, just a mile or two east of here.
"My father left a big legacy," said Chavez Jr. later, wearing a sport coat, the title belt around his waist and a welt over his right eye. "I just feel honored to be able to do something that he did. It took a lot of heart tonight."
Strange, how Chavez is turning around his persona, one bruise at a time.
At one point in his career he was all mustard and no beef. He wouldn’t have had this career, people scoffed, if his name had been Julio Cesar Schwartz, and when he did fight he showed little taste for the face-to-face trials that his father endured.
"Being compared to him is something I’ve always lived with," Junior said. "But now I feel I’ll be defending this title many times."
But as Chavez Jr.’s skills have broadened, the mass appeal might be waning. The whole upper bowl of Staples was blocked off because ticket sales had slumped, and the lower bowl was not full either. The estimated crowd was 7,800.
Zbik thought there were three too many folks in attendance.
"It’s a shame to lose my title in this way," he said. "He (Chavez) wanted the belt and he had to come take it, but I’m the one who was always moving forward and making the fight. I landed many more punches.
"What can I say? I knew the situation. I knew that, coming here, he would probably win the fight if it were close. But in my mind it wasn’t close at all."
Promoter Bob Arum, who handles Chavez, shrugged and said, "Boxing is in the eye of the beholder," a far more temperate reaction that he had when Oscar De La Hoya was his man, and Arum beheld close losses to Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley.
"He (Zbik) was just slap-punching us early," said Freddie Roach, who trains Chavez. "Those punches weren’t hurting us. In the end I told Julio that to win the fight, we had to make him back up. We did that and we wound up winning the fight.
"We told everybody before the fight that we were going to have to box him, but we just said that to throw him off. We knew we were going to pressure him and try to wear him out, and in the last rounds I think we did that."
However, Roach did not necessary think Chavez had to pay such a disfiguring price to get inside Zbik.
"He’s got to work on his head movement," Roach said. ’I’d really prefer that he didn’t get hit like that, but he’s tough. I told him he won the fight because of his (guts).
"His father was very proud of the way he fought tonight. Those left hooks to the body, they were straight from his dad. But he can throw right hooks to the body, too, and that’s what we’re working on."
Chavez still was not ranked among the top 10 middleweights by Ring magazine, coming in. But his career now enters the acceleration lane as he goes to 43-0-1. at age 25.
The recognized "champeen," as Arum would call him, is Sergio Martinez, who severely derailed the careers of Kelly Pavlik and Paul Williams.
But Arum doesn’t feel Martinez has the pay-per-view clout. And, not coincidentally, Chavez is not ready for Martinez.
The next man up is probably Miguel Cotto, who will be trying to move to middleweight and also provides the spicy Puerto Rico vs. Mexico rivalry.
As for Zbik, he has a better chance of seeing Chavez again at some faraway Oktoberfest.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. looked like a fighter Saturday night at Staples Center, and he had to, because Sebastian Zbik had no interest in dancing with stars or anyone else.
The two could have staged this WBC middleweight championship in a cubicle (nobody knows phone booths anymore).
Zbik, proving himself to be far more than just a high-yield Scrabble word, outpunched and outmaneuvered Chavez through the first four rounds.
Chavez, cracking the German with some body shots that wound up south of the Danube, went deep into the recesses that you have to visit on nights like this, and he looked quite at home there.
The judges said Chavez won the final three rounds. Their cards also said that he had to.
He wound up winning a majority decision (7-5 in rounds, 8-4 and 6-6) and thus earned his first belt in the same city his dad won his, in 1985 against Mario Martinez in the Olympic Auditorium, just a mile or two east of here.
"My father left a big legacy," said Chavez Jr. later, wearing a sport coat, the title belt around his waist and a welt over his right eye. "I just feel honored to be able to do something that he did. It took a lot of heart tonight."
Strange, how Chavez is turning around his persona, one bruise at a time.
At one point in his career he was all mustard and no beef. He wouldn’t have had this career, people scoffed, if his name had been Julio Cesar Schwartz, and when he did fight he showed little taste for the face-to-face trials that his father endured.
"Being compared to him is something I’ve always lived with," Junior said. "But now I feel I’ll be defending this title many times."
But as Chavez Jr.’s skills have broadened, the mass appeal might be waning. The whole upper bowl of Staples was blocked off because ticket sales had slumped, and the lower bowl was not full either. The estimated crowd was 7,800.
Zbik thought there were three too many folks in attendance.
"It’s a shame to lose my title in this way," he said. "He (Chavez) wanted the belt and he had to come take it, but I’m the one who was always moving forward and making the fight. I landed many more punches.
Promoter Bob Arum, who handles Chavez, shrugged and said, "Boxing is in the eye of the beholder," a far more temperate reaction that he had when Oscar De La Hoya was his man, and Arum beheld close losses to Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley.
"He (Zbik) was just slap-punching us early," said Freddie Roach, who trains Chavez. "Those punches weren’t hurting us. In the end I told Julio that to win the fight, we had to make him back up. We did that and we wound up winning the fight.
"We told everybody before the fight that we were going to have to box him, but we just said that to throw him off. We knew we were going to pressure him and try to wear him out, and in the last rounds I think we did that."
However, Roach did not necessary think Chavez had to pay such a disfiguring price to get inside Zbik.
"He’s got to work on his head movement," Roach said. ’I’d really prefer that he didn’t get hit like that, but he’s tough. I told him he won the fight because of his (guts).
"His father was very proud of the way he fought tonight. Those left hooks to the body, they were straight from his dad. But he can throw right hooks to the body, too, and that’s what we’re working on."
Chavez still was not ranked among the top 10 middleweights by Ring magazine, coming in. But his career now enters the acceleration lane as he goes to 43-0-1. at age 25.
The recognized "champeen," as Arum would call him, is Sergio Martinez, who severely derailed the careers of Kelly Pavlik and Paul Williams.
But Arum doesn’t feel Martinez has the pay-per-view clout. And, not coincidentally, Chavez is not ready for Martinez.
The next man up is probably Miguel Cotto, who will be trying to move to middleweight and also provides the spicy Puerto Rico vs. Mexico rivalry.
As for Zbik, he has a better chance of seeing Chavez again at some faraway Oktoberfest.