Chavez vs Rubio: Team Rubio Files Official Protest, Demands No-Contest Ruling

Marco Antonio Rubio's team has filed the official protest they promised with the WBC, claiming that the sanctioning body broke their own rules repeatedly, and demanding that the bout be annulled. Chavez defeated Rubio via decision on February 4 in San Antonio.

Jake Donovan at BoxingScene.com reports that the Rubio camp has two major concerns:

1. They speculate that the WBC never bothered to do their safety check weigh-ins on Chavez. The 30-day weigh-in would have had Chavez at no more than 176 pounds by WBC rules. When Chavez was arrested for a DWI in California two weeks before the fight, he was listed at 175. So either he lost a pound in two weeks and then basically crashed down (which might have happened, to be fair), or the WBC never checked. The Rubio camp seems to feel they never checked -- which is also a reasonable speculation. This part will be almost impossible to prove, since why wouldn't they just lie if they didn't do it, but they're saying it anyway.
   
2. The lack of post-fight drug testing. Texas, because it's a commission run by the criminally ignorant, does not require post-fight drug testing. It's 2012, and this is a commission hosting major fights, not requiring even the bullshit urinalysis that any dummy who has a shred of a clue what he's doing can cheat and beat. The WBC, however, does require post-fight drug testing for title fights. All of them. Except this one, apparently. The WBC blamed Texas, and Texas blamed themselves, but nobody's really buying any of it.

It is no secret that JCC Jr is coddled enormously by the WBC. The son of the greatest Mexican boxing legend of all-time, Chavez the younger is sort of like "and Son" of a father-son plumbing business. He screws up and he's really not that good of a plumber, but his dad has a great reputation in the community and everyone loves him, so he gets to do more or less as he pleases, and when dad steps down, son takes over the business and people keep going there out of habit or loyalty or whatever, even though the quality is noticeably not the same.

I have defended Chavez as a fighter in the past, and still will -- he makes for generally good fights, he works hard in the ring (if not before he gets there), and he seems to really want to be better than he is. But I will not defend the way his career has been handled, even though I "get it," because it's not the way Top Rank has promoted him or the way a large fanbase has taken to him via loyalty to his father's name. Those things are natural, and those things are not unusual in boxing.

What I cannot abide is the way "Don" Jose and his cronies have babied him throughout his career. I will never, ever forget the laughable manner in which they addressed Chavez failing a Nevada drug test in 2009 for a diuretic, by all but pleading with the public for prayer and support as they devised a strategy to get Chavez the proper care so he'd never go hungry again or whatever -- it was unbelievable. And here we are, a few years later, and supposedly he's "changed" and is "good" now, but we're dealing with the same old crap as always, and the WBC is valiantly surrounding the boy-king with their shields.