Having a famous father is never easy. I knew Tony Bennett’s daughter. She was a mess. I knew Gene Kelly’s son. Let’s just say he wasn’t big enough to fill his father’s shoes. The same could be said about Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. His dad is a Mexican legend, one of the toughest hombres this side of the Rio Grande. Junior didn’t have to become a boxer. With his famous name and famous father, he presumably had other options. But Junior had something to prove, to himself, to the world, but most of all to his difficult father, and it was a fool’s mission at which he ultimately failed, and unfortunately it’s not over yet, despite having lost three of his last six fights.

 

Chavez Jr. always seemed temperamentally unsuited to the task. He was like Marvis Frazier in that regard, but unlike Smokin’ Joe’s son, he seemed more comfortable eating junk food in his underwear than grunting and groaning in a grubby gym. And with their famous fathers overshadowing all the came before and after them, at least in the eyes of their impressionable sons, the odds were stacked against them from the start. They won some, which momentarily titillated fans, and lost others, but the end seemed almost inevitable, as they lost the big fights when it might have made a difference.

 

After the debacle on December 20 between Chavez Jr. and Daniel Jacobs in the friendly confines of the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona, Chavez father and son have gone on the defensive. It’s heartwarming to see that they’re working in tandem, because there’s plenty to be defensive about. Before the opening bell, Chavez Jr. had failed a drug test. He also failed to make weight. Fighting as a cruiserweight in an ostensible super middleweight bout, his performance was substandard, even allowing for the low expectations for which we’ve been primed, and it ended when Jacobs broke Chavez’s nose in the fifth round, at which point Junior threw in the towel.

 

In an attempt to salvage the good Chavez name, Chavez Jr. offered an explanation that didn’t pass the smell test. “The world knows that I give everything in that weight for five rounds,” he said. “I don’t eat meat, clenbuterol or [fail] doping exams for my fight—myself. That’s not legal! They are natural and do not come from meat.”

 

At the same time social media erupted, calling Chavez a “drug cheat” and worse, WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman released a statement clearing him of that charge.

 

“VADA Testing has reported today that the test performed on Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been confirmed as negative. Tests performed by Arizona authorities all came negative as well,” said Sulaiman on December 21. Chavez Sr. backed Sulaiman, at the same time as he backed his son.

 

“You were winning the fight,” he wrote on social media. “I believe in you and have all the faith you will be back stronger! Don’t listen to the haters! You’re a real champion I got your back! Come back stronger! Jacobs is lucky he was fighting dirty cause you were getting closer and closer with that right hand.”

 

Oedipus delayed is Oedipus denied.