Chavez Jr. receives suspension

By ESB - 10/10/2012 - Comments

By Rob Smith: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. received the first part of his suspension yesterday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for testing positive for marijuana for his fight last month against Sergio Martinez. This is a temporary suspension until the Commission can sit down and decide on the young 26-year-old Chavez Jr’s case either at the end of this month or next month, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

Keith Kizer, the executive director of the Nevada Commission, said to ESPN “He [Chavez Jr] had a license to fight in Nevada and we suspended it pending a hearing. Chavez had no objection to it. He wasn’t going to fight again this year anyway…I can’t imagine the suspension will be any less than six months.”

Chavez Jr. will be fined and could be suspended as long as a year, which is highly doubtful given the nature of the drug. The ranges for the fine can be from $300K to his entire purse of $3 million, according to Rafael. It’s not likely that Chavez Jr. will receive a severe fine for this, especially with it being his first time being caught with this particular drug. Had it been the water losing drug diuretics, then the fine and suspension would likely be much worse because Chavez Jr. has been caught previously for using this drug in 2009.

A six month suspension would work out well for Chavez Jr., especially if they can get it to start as soon as possible so that he doesn’t miss a lot of time. However, the temporary suspension will likely count as part of the upcoming suspension that Chavez Jr. is given, so he should be ready to fight a rematch against Martinez in early 2013.

Chavez Jr’s promoter Bob Arum would like to stage the Chavez Jr-Martinez rematch in the large 100,000 seat Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where a fight of nature could draw as many as 50,000. Most of the fans would be coming to see Chavez Jr., who is incredibly popular due to him being the son of the famous former Mexican fighter Julio Cesar Chavez Sr.