Who is Julio César Chávez Jr., the controversial Mexican boxer “son of a legend” whom they accuse of illegal stay in the US and alleged links with the narco

And the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, confirmed that she has been investigated since 2019 and said she hopes “there may be a deportation and that she meets a sentence in Mexico.”

The news of the arrest of the ex -scam of weight and son of Julio César Chávez -who is considered by many as the best Mexican boxer of all time -has generated great headlines, but perhaps it is not surprising.

Because as Saúl Cano writes in the Universal de México, “never in the history of sport Junior's nickname had been so great to a professional athlete.”

“Bad companies, substance abuse, doping, scale failures, attitude problems, beatings and endless anecdotes ended up staining the most respected name of national pugilism,” writes Cano.

The firstborn of the legendary Mexican boxer, Julio César Chávez, not only took his father's name: he was also the closer to repeat his success in the ring.

Born in February 1986 in the state of Sinaloa, Julio César JR grew traveling with his younger brother, Omar, also a professional boxer, to see his father's fights, who won world titles in three categories of weight in 1980 and 1990 and remains revered in his country as an icon of sport.

Julio César JR debuted as a professional at age 17, beating Jonathan Hernández in a fight against six assaults in his hometown, Culiacán. Then they began to call him “the son of a legend” and achieved a 23-0 record at the beginning of his career.

In 2009 he won his first title in the Latin SuperPluma Division of the World Boxing Council (CMB).

But that year Chávez gave positive for use of furosemide (a diuretic) to lose weight, after his fight with Troy Rowland in Las Vegas and received a seven -month suspension in Nevada.

A year later, he won the medium weight silver belt of the WBC, defeating John Duddy by unanimous decision and in June 2011 he reached the top of his career by winning the medium weight title of the WBC, by defeating the until then undefeated champion, German Sebastian Zbik, by majority decision in the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Chávez defended the crown successfully three times: beating Peter Manfredo Jr. for technical knockout, by unanimous decision to Marco Rubio and defeating Andy Lee, also by technical knockout.

The turning point in his professional career was the defeat he suffered in 2012, at the age of 26, before the Argentine Sergio 'Maravilla' Martínez.

The defeat generated innumerable criticism about his boxing and after the fight, Chávez was suspended for nine months and fined US $ 900,000 by the Athletic Commission of the Nevada State after giving positive for marijuana.

After the defeat against Martínez, Chávez had difficulty recovering his previous form and only fought five times in five years.

But he had another outstanding opportunity in 2017 again when he faced the prominent Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez in Las Vegas in his second PPV fight (payment per event).

The fight was highly expected in Mexico, facing one of the most popular fighters in the country, Álvarez, against the “son of a legend.” But the latter lost by unanimous decision.

After the defeat against Álvarez, Chávez's problems with addiction became evident and his relationship with his father deteriorated.

Videos also emerged on the social networks that, he said, caused problems with his partner, Frida Muñoz, who had been a girlfriend of a son of “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Chávez stopped fighting for two years and on his return in 2019 he lost to the former Daniel Jacobs medium -sized in Las Vegas. After another defeat in Mexico in 2021 against Anderson Silva spent the next three years away from the ring.

At that time he published videos on Tiktok in which he accused his father of various forms of abuse.

Since 2012 Chávez accumulated a series of criminal record in the United States, as detail by the DHS in the statement of his arrest.

That year he was arrested and accused of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and driving without a license a court in Los Angeles sentenced him to 13 days in jail and 36 months of probation.

In 2023, a district judge issued an arrest warrant against the boxer for the crime of organized crime with the purpose of committing traffic and manufacturing crimes.

And in 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested him and accused of illegal possession of any assault weapon, among other crimes.

After that, Chávez claimed to have completed a rehabilitation program and be ready to return to the ring.

Chávez defeated Uriah Hall in Tampa, Florida, last July. But just a week ago, on June 28, he lost in a star fight against YouTuber turned into Jake Paul boxer in Anaheim, California.

According to US DHS in April 2024 Chávez had requested his legal permanent residence in that country.

“His request was based on his marriage to an American citizen, linked to the Sinaloa cartel for a previous relationship with the son, already deceased, of the infamous leader of the cartel, Joaquín” El Chapo “Guzmán,” says the DHS.

According to the agency, despite the fact that in 2024 the ICE (Immigration and Customs Control Service) of the United States was informed that Chávez “represented a serious threat to public security”, in January 2025 it was allowed to re -enter the country and was granted probation in San Ysidro, California.

“After multiple fraudulent statements in his request for legal permanent residence, on June 27, 2025 it was determined that he was in the country illegally and would be deported,” says the DHS.

After the news of Chávez's arrest, his father, the Mexican boxing legend Julio César Chávez, issued a statement in which he expresses his “total and unconditional support for July.”

And he adds: “We fully trust his innocence and in his human quality, as well as in the institutions of justice of both Mexico and the United States, in whom we deposit our hope so that this situation is clarified according to law and the truth.”

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