Chavez-Ramirez: It’s a Fight for Sore Eyes : Long-Awaited Bout Between Mexican Champions Tonight at Las Vegas

It’s in the eyes.

They aren’t the eyes of a killer. There isn’t even a hint of malice in Julio Cesar Chavez’s gaze.

Roberto Duran had the eyes of a maniac. He could back you up with his stare. Sonny Liston had a stare that could cut. And so did Aaron Pryor, before drugs put out the fire.

When Chavez boxes, though, there’s something about his eyes that sets him apart from the other boxers.

His eyes evoke a certain curiosity, a stare that is more clinical than malevolent. He looks at an opponent as if he were a doctor examining a patient.

It doesn’t fit, somehow, that this 5-foot 7-inch battler from Culiacan, Mexico, deemed boxing’s greatest performer by many, should not have lasers for eyes.

In the ring, he does just about everything to perfection. With J.C. Superstar, you get the complete package--defense, jab, punching ability, stamina, combinations, quickness, counter-punching.

But there’s no meltdown stare. He comes after you with softness in his eyes.

Tonight, in a long-awaited battle of Mexican champions at the Las Vegas Hilton, Chavez (61-0) will be focusing on his former neighbor, Jose Luis Ramirez (101-6).

These little men can hit. Ramirez has 82 knockouts, Chavez 49.

The winner will be the lightweight champion of both the World Boxing Assn. and the World Boxing Council. Each fighter will be paid $350,000.

In what is billed as the co-main event, Miguel Lora of Colombia, winner of all 30 of his fights, and Raul Perez of Mexico (41-1-1) will fight for the WBC bantamweight title. Lora will earn $100,000, Perez $35,000.

Chavez is fighting for even more than $350,000 and the preservation of his unbeaten record. He’s also fighting for a little piece of Madison Avenue.

In recent months, Chavez has been photographed by fashion photographers, coached by English teachers, and generally primed for a campaign to recruit U.S. advertising and marketing contracts. A glitzy portfolio has been mailed to advertising agencies.

After 61 fights, Chavez’s movie star-like face is unmarked. And just as easily as he smashes opponents to the deck, he can light up a room with his smile.

But until only recently, his management had made no effort to promote him, not even in the rich Southern California market, where he has fought so often. Not even in East Los Angeles could Chavez’s face be found on a billboard.

One published report had it that Sylvester Stallone has conferred with Chavez, with a movie project in mind.

It was thought that this week, Chavez would speak English for the first time at a boxing news conference, but when it was his turn to speak at Thursday’s conference, he said, through an interpreter: “I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing Don King speak English by now, so I will speak to you in Spanish.”

It’s a lean and hungry Chavez who goes after his old neighborhood pal tonight. Chavez weighed 140 in his last appearance, when he stopped Yogi Buchanan in 3 rounds Aug. 1 at the Forum. This week, at 135, the cheek bones protrude and his frame seems bird-like.

It will be his second WBA title defense, although he has had three non-title bouts since winning the championship from Edwin Rosario here last Nov. 21.

Chavez, 26, after years of boxing instruction in Culiacan’s Gymnasio Morelos, and sparring sessions with neighborhood youngsters such as Jose Luis Ramirez, turned pro in 1980.

In his 12th fight, against Miguel Ruiz in Culiacan, Ruiz began bleeding heavily in the first round from what was ruled a head butt by Chavez. Ruiz was ruled the winner on a disqualification. But the Culiacan boxing commission reviewed the verdict days later and reversed it to a TKO-1 victory for Chavez.

Today, some record keepers put Chavez’ record at 60-1, not 61-0.

Whatever, Chavez began putting together a long winning streak that hasn’t stopped. In 1984, he won the WBC super-featherweight title by knocking out Mario Martinez at the Forum.

He defended that title nine times before stepping up to the WBA’s lightweight title, blowing away such world-class boxers along the way as Ruben Castillo, Roger Mayweather, Refugio Rojas, Rocky Lockridge, Juan LaPorte, and, for the lightweight title, Rosario.

To one boxing man, Richie Giachetti, Chavez was born to fight.

“I’ve watched the guy in the gym,” said Giachetti, who was Larry Holmes’ trainer. “The guy doesn’t look all that great in the gym, but in the ring, the guy is great. He’s a natural talent.”

Chavez fights as if his circuitry is powered by a computer. First, you see him dispense with the myth that short-armed boxers can’t jab. Using his feet to perfection, he slips inside and jabs, setting up combinations. And the combinations come like gunshots from automatic weapons. Behind them is sure to come the punch that breaks the spirit, if not the heart, of so many opponents.

It’s a short, smacking left hook to the ribs. Inside, seemingly midway through a combination to the head, and following a right hand, Chavez will drop his right shoulder and head and finish with the left hook, low on the right side of the rib cage.

It’s the punch his foes fear most, and they know it’s coming. Count on it. It’s the punch that creates the facial expression on fighters’ faces that says: “OK, so I can’t beat the greatest fighter in the world. So what?”

“Guys can weather the punches to the head,” Giachetti said. “But when he gets you with that hook to the ribs, it really hurts. It’s the punch that every boxer in the world is taught in the gym, but only a handful can execute it like he does.”

Ramirez, 29, who bears a strong facial resemblance to Roman Gabriel, the former Ram quarterback, has won 11 straight since losing his WBC lightweight championship in 1985 to Hector Camacho. He regained it last year, when he beat Terrence Alli. Since then, he has defended it twice, against Cornelius-Boza Edwards, and Pernell Whitaker.

The controversial Whitaker fight, however, is thought of as a Ramirez defeat by nearly everyone who saw it. When the judges at the Paris fight awarded the decision to Ramirez, Whitaker’s cornermen nearly started another fight.

Ramirez, fibbing about his age, turned pro in 1973, when he was 14. In his first 8 years as a pro, he lost only twice. He has had winning streaks of 21, 22 and 24.

In 1978, he was knocked out by a Mexican legend, Ruben Olivares, and he lost a decision in Miami to Alexis Arguello in 1980. Ray Mancini beat him on a 1981 decision.

Since then, he has lost only twice, to Rosario for the WBC lightweight championship in 1983, and to Camacho. And he reversed the Rosario loss, knocking out the Puerto Rican in the fourth round in winning back the title, in 1984.

Ramirez, a left-hander, excels inside, has a solid jab, ample punching power and is always in excellent condition.

And in an age when purists moan about hotshot young boxers getting title fights after only a couple of dozen fights, Ramirez is a throwback. He had 51 fights before he was out of his teens, and 86 before he had a title fight.

And so, having traveled such a long road, Ramirez would appear to deserve this chance tonight, against the man they call J.C. Superstar. But in the opinion of nearly everyone, including the odds makers--odds favoring Chavez have been running from 7 1/2-to-1 to 9-to-1--only one result is likely.

The eyes have it.