Even as a Youth, Chavez Was the Natural

He has been the Natural since the beginning.

He was 12 when he walked into Gymnasio Morelos in Culiacan, Mexico, and put on gloves for the first time. By several accounts, all the talent that Julio Cesar Chavez exhibits today--many call him the world’s greatest fighter, pound for pound--was visible that day in 1974.

Juan Antonio Lopez was there that day, which almost makes him a hero in Mexico.

“You could see it that first day, the greatness,” Lopez said as Chavez sparred.

“He was just a little kid, but he could hit hard. He knew instinctively how to move his body and he had no fear. He even had that short left hook to the body, that first day.”

Lopez, one of Chavez’s trainers, pointed to a sparring partner, who kept elbows tucked low and close, protecting his rib cage.

“All his sparring partners do that,” Lopez said. “And no one ever taught him that punch. He did that when he was 12. That first day we saw him in the gym, I took him home to talk to his father. He was working, but I told his mother that Julio would be a world champion one day.”

Chavez seems too handsome, too pleasant when he flashes a toothy smile to fit the role of Mexico’s mightiest warrior.

But he fights almost dispassionately, seemingly giving his great talent free rein, his body following an almost programmed, inexorable path to victory.

Sixty-eight fights have produced 68 victories, with 55 knockouts. One victory early in his career, was awarded him by the Culiacan Boxing Commission the day after a referee had disqualified him for hitting after the bell.

Since the summer of 1984, when he won one of boxing’s super-featherweight championships, he has been a champion in three weight classes and is 16-0 in championship fights, a record matched by few.

Tonight at the Las Vegas Hilton, Chavez will face his strongest challenge yet in Meldrick Taylor. At stake will be two junior-welterweight (140 pounds) championships, Taylor’s International Boxing Federation title and Chavez’s World Boxing Council title.

Chavez is favored, but most boxing people see this as his toughest assignment. Taylor, 24-0-1, is the hardest hitter Chavez will have faced and, of at least equal importance, Chavez is coming up in weight to meet a naturally bigger fighter.

In the last six years, Chavez has happily met and beaten everyone put in front of him. As a champion, he has beaten Roger Mayweather, Rocky Lockridge, Juan LaPorte, Edwin Rosario, Rodolfo Aguilar, Jose Luis Ramirez and Mayweather again.

He stopped 11 of those 16 championship opponents, most of them in the late rounds, after his body punching had taken foes to levels of pain not previously experienced.

“Other guys hit harder, but Chavez is so accurate and so tough inside,” said Mayweather, who was stopped in the second round by Chavez in 1985 and in the 10th last year. “He takes a lot out of you with those body shots because they add up. They start to hurt more as every round goes by.”

Chavez himself sees tonight’s challenge as Taylor’s, not his.

“I’ve demonstrated that I’m a great fighter by winning three titles,” he said, through Alberto Gonzales of San Diego, his financial adviser-interpreter. “Taylor is the one who must prove he is a great fighter by beating me.”

He is proud of his record and was irked by a Times boxing column this week in which it was pointed out that three boxing record-keepers list Chavez as 67-1, not 68-0.

“I want to clarify I have not lost any fights,” he said. “The only fights I have lost have been to my wife and my son.”

It’s a mystery to many why Chavez isn’t seen on billboards, and magazine and TV ads. One reason is he speaks no English, despite several attempts to learn through teachers. Now, he’ll try the total immersion method, moving to the San Diego area.

“Julio has a house in the Chula Vista area in escrow, five minutes away from where the U.S. Olympic Committee Training Center will be,” Gonzalez said.

“Julio trains so hard and fights so often, that he hasn’t had time to really study English, or to fully exploit his name in Southern California. I convinced him he should live and train in the States, for at least part of the year.

Chavez, 27, has lived in Culiacan since his father, Rodolfo Chavez, a railroad engineer for 30 years, moved his big family there from Ciudad Obregon when Julio was a child. Chavez is one of 10 children and the third-youngest of four brothers, all of whom have boxed. The youngest, Roberto, 18, is 19-1 as a professional.

Gonzalez expressed some frustration at trying to manage Chavez’s finances from another country. The Chavez entourage in Las Vegas is sizable, perhaps 12 people.

“He is a very generous man to his friends . . . too generous,” Gonzalez said.

Chavez, who will make $1.4 million--not counting Mexican television income--on this fight, has invested heavily in Culiacan real estate, his adviser said.

A victory over Taylor would probably enable Chavez to reach boxing’s upper-income bracket, where Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns dwell. This fight is Chavez’s last under his contract with promoter Don King, and he is expected to become a free agent.

Steve Wynn, the Mirage Hotel owner who has offered Douglas $25 million to fight Evander Holyfield, also has offered $4 million to Chavez for a fight with Hector Camacho. There would probably also be a junior-welterweight unification showdown with Juan Coggi of Argentina.

But first, Taylor.

The Chavez camp seems to expect this one to go to a decision. At a gathering of writers Tuesday, Chavez seemed to make a plea for a fair verdict.

“This could be a long fight,” Chavez said. “I would hope that the best fighter will get a fair judgment.”

Lopez is picking his man by a decision.

“Julio will win a decision, I think,” he said. “Meldrick Taylor has only hand speed. Julio will wear him down because he is stronger, much stronger than Taylor.”

In sparring sessions here, Chavez has stepped in on sparring partners, thrown quick combinations and departed to move laterally. It suggests he may be planning not to challenge Taylor’s strength, at least in the early rounds.

He is The Natural, at the crossroads, a man who would be loved in America, as well as Mexico.

He was asked the other day about $10-million-plus purses Tyson and Leonard have earned.

“If I was an American, I would have already made that kind of money,” he said, with a shrug. “But I am a Mexican. It will take time. Roberto Duran (a Panamanian) did it and he speaks no English. I will do it, too.”