This was before my time, I see the fight was a draw and was just wondering why no rematch ever happened.
I was 13 at the time, and I followed the fights, but was still too young to be up to date on all the behind the scenes politics back then... My take away from that fight though was that most people thought Whitaker should have won, and that public opinion was good enough to provide closure to the fight . I will admit I have scored this fight a couple of times in the past however, and I didnt see the decision to be as big a robbery as everyone was shouting from the mountain top... Also, during that era of boxing, automatic rematches weren't as big of a thing as they are today. I really only ever remember the Tyson Ruddock fight as having a high demand for a rematch from that time period, because of the controversial and premature stoppage... Back in the day fighters might rematch, but it would be 3 or 4 fights down the road, sometimes even longer... And truth be told, I like that better . I've never been a fan of seeing two guys fight again, who just fought each other... I'd much rather see how both fighters grow from the first fight before they meet up again. It's one reason I have no interest in a 3rd canelo gg fight. Those two guys have gone in complete opposite directions since their last encounter, and nothing from gg would indicate he is ready or even deserving of a high profile mega fight... Also, back to Whitaker Chavez, I believe Whitaker moved up to take the 154 belt shortly after Chavez, although my timeline might be off a bit
when you have a stadium full of chavez fans QUIET after it was announced a draw, you know who really won the fight. while the fight was close, sweetpea clearly won by a couple of rounds. at the time, chavez was promoted by don king. king's #1 money maker, tyson, was in prison at the time. chavez, his #2 money maker needed to keep his big 0 losses to still attract the fans and money. sweetpea knew that if they re matched , would probably be the same result.
The way it is now, you often have to beat the champ twice to win and keep the title, while the champ only needs to win once. Just look at both Ortiz and Usyk against Joshua.
My opinion was that a rematch would have opened up the possibility of too many problems for Julio. Everyone knows he lost, so a rematch would have forced the issue with the powers that be to either judge the second fight on the level and finally admit defeat for their great cash cow, or invite even more unfavorable press with yet another unjust decision. They just wanted to let the existing unhappy little episode pass with as little notice as possible.
Thanks for all the responses. After watching some of the fight, it def looked to be a clash of styles. All wrong for JCC.
IMO JCC had just hit the end of his prime and a rematch would have been disastrous for him at that point...in other words Sweetpea was too good to chance again and the fight just wasn't that exciting and would not have produced a big payday at least not big enough to risk a rematch. I think Pea would have cracked the code in a rematch and JCC was shooting for the magical 100-0
Essentially I think both camps ended up seeing a potential rematch as being more trouble than it was worth. From Chavez's point of view he needed Whitaker like he needed a hole in his head. He'd already been made to look a little pedestrian in the first encounter and was generally seen to have lucked out with the draw. By 1993 Whitaker was an established Welter champion and, although it wasn't his best weight, the fight probably underlined that Julio just wasn't cut out for that division at all at the highest level (remember he came in at 142, probably reflective of that). Any potential rematch was always going to be at Welter by this point which wasn't to Chavez's advantage. Crucially, he was also the much bigger draw than Pea and didn't need him to earn the big bucks. Better to take the draw and save a bit of face. Now from Whitaker's point of view. As Al Bernstein noted soon afterwards, why wouldn't Whitaker be cynical about a rematch? He'd still be the B-Side and as such would likely be fighting in front of a pro-Chavez crowd again, with similar people judging and sanctioning it. Moreover, the vast majority of fans, pundits and fellow pros tended to see the first fight as a win in all but name for Whitaker - it was, for instance, enough to prompt Ring Magazine to swap them around and put Whitaker as pound for pound number one in their year-end ratings, whereas they'd had Chavez at the top beforehand - and there was a feeling that he'd proven everything he needed to with the performance, regardless of the verdict. As he was defending his belt anyway the draw, while robbing him of the glory of taking the great Chavez's '0' and denying him a huge signature win, at least didn't rob him of champion status and therefore didn't disrupt his career too much. The last point is how politically tricky it would have been to make the fight, even if both guys had been desperate for it. The HBO-Showtime divide was already pretty stark by 1993 and the controversy over this fight helped to ensure it lasted for a good few years yet. The Duva camp already had an enormous grievance with King, and had made no secret of their belief that Don's less than scrupulous methods were the reason why Whitaker and Taylor had been robbed against Ramirez and Chavez in the preceding few years. Duva had already been dragged in front of the courts by King for some of the accusations he'd made. The fallout from Chavez-Whitaker only added to that and made it even more unlikely that any compromises would be given by either side in order to make a rematch.
Here is my issue w Chavez who up to that point was an exceptional fighter. He simply avoided a rematch. He was later beaten by Randall and was part of a complete heist to get the title back and refused a rubber match till much later. Chavez became a protected , exceptionally well promoted, arrogant fighter.
