By David Martinez 

After a year layoff, former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. (46-1-1 / 32 by KO) won a controversial 10 round unanimous decision over Brian Vera (23-7 / 14 by KO) at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

The fight weight and distance were changed and the fight went on as scheduled televised on HBO. Originally the bout was to be 12 rounds and the weight limit to be 165 pounds, but weight was reduced to a catch weight of 173 pounds due to Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. inability to make weight, with Vera agreeing to that.

Vera came fit to this fight and fought with a high volume of punches throughout. Chavez threw at a lower volume and landed some harder punches, which apparently caught the judges’ eyes. Their scores were 96-94, 97-93 and 98-92, but I saw it differently with Vera winning the bout 96-94. The look on Vera’s trainer (Ronnie Shields) face after the fight told the whole story on this fight!

On the under card of the HBO telecast, from Montreal, Canada, WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (22-1 / 19 by KO) scored a lopsided 7th round knockout win over former IBF champion Tavoris Cloud (24-2 / 19 by KO).

The light heavyweight division has become richer in the past year with Stevenson certainly establishing himself as a legitimate champion.  Big fights loom for him against Nathan Cleverly (26-0 / 12 by KO), Sergei Kovalev (21-0 / 19 by KO), and the winners of Bernard Hopkins (53-6-2 / 32 by KO) vs. Karo Murat (25-1-1 / 15 by KO) or Jean Pascal (27-2-1 / 16 by KO) vs. Lucian Bute (31-1 / 24 by KO) bouts.