Julio César Chávez Carrasco (born 16 February 1986), best known as Julio César Chávez Jr., is a Mexican professional boxer who held the WBC middleweight title from 2011 to 2012. He is the son of retired boxing legend Julio César Chávez and older brother of Omar Chávez. Personal life Chávez Jr. was born in the state of Sinaloa, when his father held the WBC World Championship at super featherweight. His face became known to boxing fans when his father would take him and his brother Omar into the ring as children, before each of Chávez Sr.'s fights. As a teenager, Chávez Jr. endured some difficult moments, including a widely publicized relationship between his father and actress Salma Hayek and the subsequent divorce of his parents. Chávez Jr. lived in relative obscurity until he announced that he would follow in the footsteps of his father and become a boxer. Amateur career Chávez's amateur career consisted of only two fights against former world champion Jorge Páez's oldest son Jorge Páez Jr.; both of the exhibitions bouts were shown on Mexican television. Professional career Early career After those amateur fights, Chávez Jr. started his professional boxing career at 17 years old. On 26 September 2003, at Super Featherweight (130 lbs), he won his professional debut by outpointing Jonathan Hernandez over six rounds in Chávez Jr.'s native Culiacán, Sinaloa. Chávez Jr. was signed with Bob Arum's Top Rank. Many of his fights have been held during boxing programs that have been headed by his father; he has also been featured on the undercards of many major pay-per-view fights (rare for an up-and-coming fighter, but not unexpected in his case given his father's fame). He is considerably taller than his father. Chávez Jr. set a fighting pace that was reminiscent of Chávez Sr.'s own pace when the latter was a younger man: in 2004, he fought eleven times, not having a fight only in August during that year. Chávez won by a split decision over Matt Vanda 12 July 2008. Scores for the fight were 97–93 and 100–90, while losing 96–95 on another card. Chávez struggled with making weight for several bouts and was suspended following his win over Troy Rowland for using a banned diuretic, furosemide, to make the 160-pound weight limit. As a result, the fight was changed to a no contest. Middleweight On 26 June 2010, at the Alamodome in San Antonio,