EL PASO, TEXAS – Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. earned a unanimous decision (97-92, 98-91, 96-93) over Marcos Reyes in the main event of SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING on Saturday in front of 9,245 at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.

Reyes was the more active fighter – he doubled Chavez’s output – but simply couldn’t hurt his larger opponent.  Following a loss at light heavyweight last April, Chavez decided to attempt to campaign at super middleweight.

Chavez (49-2-1, 32 KOs), who was fighting for the first time with trainer Robert Garcia, seemed to be able to land his power shots at will, however he would pick his spots and had long bouts of inactivity.  Although he was working with a new trainer, Chavez continued to bulldoze forward and fought a very similar fight as he did against Andrezj Fonfara in April, this time against a smaller opponent.

“I won.  This is big for me and Robert,” Chavez said.  “I can do it better, but I won and that is the important thing.  I’m going to fight at 168 pounds.  Little by little, I’m going to get down in weight.  We know we’re doing much better work in the gym.

“In the third round I hurt my left hand.  I think it’s broken, I don’t know.  I’ll see the doctor.  With all respect to Reyes, if I hadn’t hurt my hand I would have knocked him out.

“I connected on the best punches to the chin and the body.  I hurt him, but I couldn’t finish him because I hurt my hand.  He threw a lot of punches but missed a lot.  He never hurt me.  I felt I hurt him every time I landed.”

After the fight, Reyes (33-3, 24 KOs) preached his case to SHOWTIME reporter Jim Gray and pointed out the weight disparity.

“I feel I won the fight.   I showed him how I box,” Reyes said.  “I made the weight at 168 and he didn’t make weight.  He’s like a light heavyweight fighting a middleweight.

“I was against all odds – the referee, the weight, everything.  I think I won the fight.  It’s OK – I did my best.”

In the co-feature, McJoe Arroyo won a technical decision over Arthur Villanueva to win the vacant IBF Junior Bantamweight World Championship after the bout was stopped at 2:10 in the 10th round due to a deep gash over Villanueva’s right eye.  The fight went to the judges’ scorecards and Villanueva was ahead 97-92, 98-91 after the judges scored the 10th.