Canelo def. Chavez Jr. via shutout decision: 5 biggest takeaways

Canelo Alvarez defeated Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. via shutout decision in a farce of a fight, setting the stage for a showdown against Gennady Golovkin on September 16. Here are five takeaways from the fight.

Perhaps suspecting that Canelo Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. would be even worse than anticipated, Golden Boy Promotions and HBO had a framework in place to redeem the debacle: an announcement that Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) will finally face unified champion Gennady Golovkin on September 16th for all the middleweight marbles.

Credit Canelo and Golovkin’s camps for quietly arriving at a deal after a string of futile negotiations, but the staged nature of breaking the news, while certainly compelling, also reinforced the mass deception that was Canelo-Chavez, a fight no one had asked for in what amounted to a maddening pay-per-view offering that represents boxing’s worst tendencies.

And yet, fans tuned in because of the pageantry that comes with a marquee Cinco de Mayo event, which featured some intriguing undercard fighters and was significantly hyped. Despite facing an utterly outgunned foe, Canelo reminded fans that he’s an elite, perpetually improving fighter who actually has a large portion of the substance needed to justify his popularity.

Now that the dust has settled, there are myriad factors to consider for Chavez (50-3-1, 32 KOs) and whether he continues boxing, and Alvarez as he gets set for the first truly defining fight of his athletic prime. With their score settled, Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. can go their separate ways, leaving behind a trail of overwhelming evidence that their paths never should have crossed in the ring.

With that, here are five takeaways from the Cinco de Mayo brawl that never was — and never should have been.