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ALEX ARIZA: "EVERYBODY IS TURNING THEIR BACK ON CHAVEZ JR...SOMEBODY HAS TO BE ACCOUNTABLE"

By Ben Thompson | August 16, 2011
ALEX ARIZA:

"Everybody is turning their back on Chavez Jr. You can see everybody is washing their hands of the fight, from Bob Arum saying, 'I got nothing to do with it,' to him saying, 'Fernando Beltran, all he's doing is facilitating the fight.' I've never ever seen something done so unprofessionally...Do you know why they're turning their back on him? Because this thing has disaster written all over it. No trainer, 4 weeks to get ready for a title shot, and I don't know anything about this kid Ronald Hearns," stated strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, who was furious about the fact that he was led to believe that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. would not be fighting on September 17th only to find out that he actually will be, therefore only giving them roughly 4 weeks to prepare for Chavez's first defense of his WBC middleweight title against Ronald Hearns. You do not want to miss what he had to say!

BT: Alex, what's up my man?

AA: I'm here in Mexico just trying to figure out what we're going to do. You know Chavez is fighting, right?

BT: I heard. He's fighting September 17th, isn't he?

AA: Yeah. I just found out he's fighting, mind you. For the last 2-3 weeks, we've been reading the fight's 100% off, it's not going to happen, this, that, and the other, and now, on Wednesday, I found out there's a press conference here on Monday and the fight is happening. From Bob Arum's mouth himself, "It's 100% off. It's a no-go. It's not going to happen." From that to, "It is happening. I've got nothing to do with this fight. Fernando's got nothing to do with this fight. He's just facilitating the fight." Tell me the difference between fucking facilitating and promoting.

BT: Sounds like the same thing to me; basically someone trying to make a fight happen.

AA: They let so much fucking time go by. Freddie waited and waited and waited. Freddie's the busiest trainer in the world, so he filled in the spot, you know? Now he's not going to be here. Obviously he can't be here because he made other commitments because, on Bob's word, there was no such thing as a fight. Now here we are, four fucking weeks away from a fight...wait...take that back...4 fucking weeks away from Chavez Jr.'s first title defense. Let me ask you something, do you think that would ever happen if it was Manny Pacquiao?

BT: Oh, hell no.

AA: Here's the best part, do you know what they're calling it?

BT: No, what?

AA: A tribute to Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. I've known about a fight supposedly happening probably for 4 fucking months and this is the first time that I heard it was a tribute to Chavez Sr. These people are so full of shit; fucking everybody is turning their back on Chavez Jr. You can see everybody is washing their hands of the fight, from Bob Arum saying, "I got nothing to do with it," to him saying, "Fernando Beltran, all he's doing is facilitating the fight." I've never ever seen something done so unprofessionally. It's like a fucking circus; like one of those fights at the fair grounds. It's so disorganized. Not to mention, we got a little less than 5 weeks to prepare the kid for a world championship fight; no camp has been established, don't know where we're training, don't know anything yet. They've made it so difficult and have excluded his manager, Billy [Keane], from everything. Billy, right now, is scrambling to rent a house and put some sparring partners together within the next 24 hours.

BT: Wow! I know Chavez Jr. was wanting to stay active. I don't understand why Bob Arum doesn't want to have anything to do with it.

AA: That's a good question. You're going to have to ask him that. Why are they washing their hands of it? Let me ask you something Ben, if I'm partners with your boss and you're going to go write something and I have the power to tell your boss, "Tell Ben not to write that shit. The answer is no," would I sit back here and say, "Oh, I've got nothing to do with what Ben writes. If he wants to do it, how am I going to say no?" Easy, you fucking say no!

BT: (Laughing) I guess that's where I'm confused because Chavez Jr. is Bob Arum's fighter. He's under contract with Top Rank, period, so...

AA: (Cutting in) Now they're saying it's a tribute to fucking Chavez Sr., so he [Bob Arum] puts out there in the media, "How can I say no?" Easy. You say, "Listen, I'm your promoter. It's 4 weeks away from the fight. It's not smart. Absolutely not! It's not going to happen." That's how!

BT: That's what I was getting at. I mean, obviously Arum's got him under contract, so I assume he has the authority to say Chavez Jr. isn't going to fight. That's like Manny Pacquiao saying, "Hey, I want to do my own fight, Bob. See ya later. I'm going to go fight over here in the Philippines," and then Bob turning around and saying, "Oh, okay. I guess can't do anything about it."

AA: That's funny because you know what I'm going to tell Manny? I'm gonna say, "Guess what Bob lets his fighters do? He lets them fight in their own country and he's got nothing to do with." I bet Manny can't wait to hear that one.

BT: (Laughing) That's what I mean. If that's the case, why can't Manny have a fight in the Philippines and keep all the money from that fight himself without Bob Arum being involved.

AA: That's a good question. I guess we'll have to ask Manny that.

BT: You know damn well Bob Arum wouldn't let that happen.

AA: Exactly!

BT: If he doesn't want to have anything to do with him fighting in Mexico, I would think he would tell Chavez, "Look kid, you're not going to be fighting."

AA: Do you know why they're turning their back on him? Because this thing has disaster written all over it. No trainer, 4 weeks to get ready for a title shot, and I don't know anything about this kid Ronald Hearns. I don't know much about him. I haven't seen any tape on him or anything like that. Listen, let me tell you something, the Duddy that fought Chavez Jr. is no Duddy I've ever seen before. The Zbik that fought Chavez Jr., that's no fucking Sebastian Zbik I was watching in his last 10 fights. Who the fuck was that guy who showed up? Do you know what I mean? What is this kid [Hearns] going to show up and do now? Every time we fight somebody, dude, it's a surprise. And let me tell you, the Maidana that fought Amir Khan, that was no Maidana I've ever seen before, you know? You just don't know how these guys prepare themselves when they come to fight one of our guys.

BT: Is Chavez Jr. the one who's pushing for this fight to go through? Is he adamant about having it?

AA: Well, he wasn't adamant about anything. He was adamant about being busy. Like any other smart fighter, you know, he didn't want a really long layoff. From the Duddy fight to go to a really great fight, 6 months layoff, bam he fights Billy Lyle. That was terrible. Let me tell you how the timeframe went. Preparation for John Duddy was 4 weeks. Preparation for Billy Lyle, 19 days! Now preparation for first title defense of WBC, 4 weeks. Somebody needs to explain that shit to me. Is this how the son of the greatest Mexican fighter in the world is treated? That's how they treat him. I dare you; I fucking double motherfucking dare you to go to Team Khan and say, "Oh, we're going to hurry up and put together a title defense for Amir Khan." You'd get told to fuck off so quick, you wouldn't even get a chance to finish asking if they would like to do it.

BT: Golden Boy Promotions wouldn't even let that happen. That's what I don't understand. I just don't understand why this fight is moving forward if Bob Arum doesn't really want it to go through.

AA: It's the most unprofessional donkey show I've ever seen in my life. I don't know who's promoting it, I don't know who's behind it, but I wouldn't let them promote a cock fight. I mean, I've seen cock fights that have been put together better than this. I really have. It's so disgraceful to allow a world champion, the son of a legend, to get treated like this. It's no wonder why the kid went out and got him some management.

BT: I know he wants to stay busy, but I don't even know why he's still going through with the fight on short notice. I guess if he thinks he can get enough training in...

AA: Why not? Let me ask you something, why doesn't he think that? It took him 4 weeks to get ready for Duddy. They only gave him 19 days for Billy Lyle. Four weeks now, so why doesn't he think he can do it? I mean, he probably never even heard of a camp longer than that, so he probably thinks this is normal. I mean, it is such a fucking letdown to me, man. That's why this fucking sport is the way it is. You wonder why you get lackluster performances, you wonder why fighters don't look the same, you wonder why all these people can't walk the walk. They can talk it, but come fight night, they ain't doing it. You wonder why any of this shit is happening. I've never seen anything like this before in my life. Never ever in my life.

BT:  Well like I said, that's Bob Arum's fighter, so if he wants to stay busy, I don't see why he can't help them out, especially if it's supposed to be some kind of dedication to Chavez Sr.

AA: Yeah, it's a dedication to Chavez. I don't know how they were hustled into it. First it was supposed to be in Mexico City, then it was gonna be in Mazatlan, now it's here in Culiacan. My assumption is that they're the only people who wanted to buy the fight on a night that Canelo Alvarez is fighting September 17th, Mayweather is fighting September 17th, I mean, I'm sorry, but that is the weekend of everybody's fights, so now you got 3 fighters that are fighting on the 17th. I wonder how many weeks Golden Boy gave Canelo to get ready for his fight? You wanna know how many weeks they gave me to get Amir Khan ready for his title defense against Zab Judah?  I got 10 weeks! 10! I wonder how many weeks Golen Boy gave Canelo to get ready for his title defense? I know Golden Boy gave us 10 weeks. Manny's known about his fight for 4 months.

BT: None of this should be news to Bob Arum. He knew that Chavez Jr. wanted to get another fight in. They were already supposedly trying to put something together with Ronald Hearns. I remember Lou DiBella saying that he hasn't seen a contract yet so I guess he wasn't sure if the fight was happening or not.

AA: That's nothing new. Let me ask you something, doesn't it all sound kind of ironic, or maybe it's just coincidence, but is that their own signature move right there; let their guys train all the way up to the week of the fight then give them a fight contract. I mean, it sounds a lot like Kelly Pavlik, doesn't it? It sounds a lot like Humberto Soto, doesn't it? It sounds a lot like Chavez Jr., doesn't it?

BT: So what are you doing down their now? Did they tell you that you had to get down there immediately?

AA: No, I found out that there is a fight. That's what happened to me on Thursday. I found out there is 100% a fight after I was told for weeks that it's not going to happen, they're never going to come up with the money, there's no way, it's 100% off, Fernando's lying, blah, blah, blah, blah. How does one hand not know what the other hand is doing? What kind of co-promotion is that? Either there's this conspiracy here to somehow make Chavez lose? I don't know. I don't have any explanation. All I know is that it's just fucking disgusting. It's so irresponsible and unprofessional. I mean, there should be some kind of fucking law for people doing this. You should be able to lose your license.

BT: Who called you and told you to get down there?

AA: It was his manager, Billy Keane. He just found out. He talked to Bob and Bob said, "The fight's on." Billy was like, "Yeah, I know." This kid's got 4 weeks to put on his first title defense. He just won the fucking thing. You can't do any better than that to give us 4 fucking weeks to keep it? I mean, explain to me how this is happening.

BT: I can't my man. I assume Arum really didn't want Chavez Jr. to fight, so he probably stalled and told everybody the fight's not happening. That way, by keeping everybody in the dark, you wouldn't have enough time, Freddie wouldn't have enough time, and hopefully, Chavez Jr. wouldn't go through with the fight.

AA: That very well could be the case. Nobody can argue the point that nobody knew because when I spoke to Chavez Sr., he was like, "Fuck! What are we going to do? How are we going to do this?" I can tell you right now that by the look on Chavez Sr.'s face, he's sitting there thinking, "What the fuck? Why didn't we get more notice?" How do you do something like that? What the fuck? If that was their plan to somehow cut this guy short with 4 weeks, they made a mistake because I promise you this, whatever they think is going to happen, I'm going to make sure that it doesn't. He's going to be tip-top, he's going to be ready to go, and I'm going to make sure to remind him every day how motherfuckers have turned their back on him. I don't know if it's Bob Arum's fault, I don't know if it's Fernando Beltran's fault, but somebody has to be accountable for this. It's fucking unreal, bro. I'm so disappointed.



[ Follow Ben Thompson on Twitter @fighthype ]

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