How popular was JCC in the 80's?

No.. Definitely not the most popular fighter of the 80's. His notoriety was well hidden in the shadows of Tyson, Leonard, Hagler, and many others. How popular was he? If you lived in Mexico he was known to more people than the president. In the United states he was just starting to get noticed in the late 80's.

 

Well, I sure didn't like him for some stupid reason,...but I got over that, and I esteem him as the greatest Mexican champ in history,....just maybe with the exception of Sal Sanchez.

 

1. Chavez
2. Olivares
3. Saldivar
4. Sanchez
4. Marquez

 

He was actually much more popular in the 90's after Tyson went away Don King used to do those mega PPVS and Chavez was almost always the headliner. Those cards were great though, you'd often get Trinidad, Norris, Azumah Nelson, Julian Jackson and Chavez.. PPV sucks but atleast those cards were stacked with great fighters.

 

top 10 for sure....

 

You absolutely misspelled that. It's Jaxtse Ajd' Axhd. But everything else was true.

 

As said, he only came to the fore when Tyson was put away. He usually fought on the undercard of a Tyson fight.
That is not to say he was not popular or that his pridigious talent wasn't recognised, but he wasn't a genuine star. That only came when King's meal ticket 0got convicted and King then turned to JCC.

But even then, his popularity didn't ever really ignite in the States. Efforts where made for him to learn English to appeal more to American fans, but that never really worked out.
He was far from the most popular fighter, in any era he was in.

 

This isn't true.
Chavez was hugely popular by 1988 or 1989, a super star of boxing.
His fight with Meldrick Taylor in March 1990 was huge. His 1987 fight with Rosario was pretty huge. He fought often, not because he was not a star, but because he was willing to fight, and fought in several title fights and non-titles and sold lots of tickets.

He only fought on two Tyson cards, Alex Stewart and Razor Ruddock 1.

 

Chavez was terrific and huge till the Taylor fight when it all went to his head .. he became a very well promoted and protected fighter .. he clearly lost to Whitaker, did not acknowledge it and refused a rematch .. he participated in an absolute robbery regaing the title against Randall .. absolutely terrible the way they took that title from Frankie .. again Julio did absolutely nothing about rematching till many years later when Randall was a junkie looking for a buck .. then I was not a fan of how he quit against Oscar in the rematch .. putting that aside , at 130 and 135 he was an absolute monster .. the beating he gave Rosario was some clinic ..

 

Eh, there's more than a shred of truth to what he says, really. With Tyson put away, King DID use him as his #1 draw, which by definition puts him on a new level of exposure anyhow, if not outright popularity. Until then though, he was popular for sure with boxing enthusiasts, but that was about it.

 

I saw Julio Cesar Chavez stop Roger Mayweather in 10th round at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California during 1989. The crowd was far below capacity for the bout. As a result, I feel that Chavez didn't become very popular until sometime during the 1990s.

- Chuck Johnston

 

That was a great fight. If we're talking about their second meeting then I saw it on HBO. Didn't see the first. Very good effort on both men's part. Yeah I think die hard boxing fans knew who chavez was before then but I agree that the casual fans and general public didn't start picking up on him until the 90's. Especially when that undefeated record of his started reaching ludicrous proportions. Hector Camacho reached celebrity status long before Chavez did.

 

Why would a non English speaking Mexican who lived in Mexico, give a sh*t about how " popular " he was in a country that he only used to make more money than he could earn in his native land?

 

And boy he got popular, over 130,000 fans attended his fight against Greg Haugen.