43
Lyell to fight favorite fighter’s son
Photo
Billy Lyell wins decision over Chris Gray in Niles on Oct. 17, 2009.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
When Billy Lyell was 11 years old in June of 1996, he watched Oscar De La Hoya beat his favorite fighter, Julio Cesar Chavez in a WBC light welterweight bout.
“I remember I cried,” Lyell said by phone Thursday. “For years after that fight, I couldn’t stand De La Hoya.”
A few minutes later, Lyell sent a text.
“Don’t say I cried ,” he wrote. “I’ll look like a [sissy].
“Maybe say I almost cried.”
Lyell was such a big Chavez fan, he even rooted for him against Youngstown’s Ken Sigurani in 1998. More than a decade later, he’ll get a chance to fight his favorite fighter’s son when he meets undefeated Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in a middleweight bout on Jan. 29 in Culiacan, Mexico.
It will be Lyell’s first fight since May 7 and he knows he’ll be viewed as little more than a tune-up for Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KOs), who is coming off a unanimous decision win over John Duddy in June and who could next face WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik on March 26.
“I’ve just got to fight my fight,” Lyell said. “I know I’m going into his backyard but once the bell rings, there’s only two of us in the ring, so I never worry about that.
“I just have to go and dominate the fight. They’re not bringing me down there to beat him.”
Lyell (22-8, 4 KOs) won a unanimous decision over Martinus Clay last May. Three months earlier, he lost to IBF champion Sebastian Sylvester by 10th-round TKO in Germany.
Lyell took the Sylvester fight on one week’s notice, which is why he’s not worried about only having a month to prepare for Chavez Jr.
“I started training last week, so that gives me about five weeks,” said Lyell, a Niles native. “I’ll never complain about five weeks.”
Lyell’s promoter, Pat Nelson, tried to arrange several fights in the last eight months only to see them fall through.
But Lyell kept in shape — he trains regularly with Keith Burnside at the Burnside Boxing Club — and when Nelson called him last week with the Chavez fight, he didn’t hesitate. Especially since he’s been collecting unemployment since getting laid off from GM Lordstown just before Christmas.
“They made me a good offer, but when I didn’t see anything about it on the Internet, I didn’t know if it was 100 percent,” said Lyell, who worked as a temp when the Chevrolet Cruz was launched. “You know how boxing is.”
The fight was finally announced Thursday. The nearly nine-month layoff will be the second-longest of his career, just behind a 10-month layoff between bouts in 2007-08.
“I actually think it helped,” said Lyell, who fought 10 times over a two-year period including last May’s bout. “I had been fighting a lot of rounds the past year or two and just to let my body heal up and rest did me more good than anything.”
Lyell liked the elder Chavez because he was a tough, old-school fighter. He sees some of the same characteristics in the son.
“He looks like he goes to the body good,” Lyell said. “And he’s got a good left hook, just like his dad.”
The fighters share a famous opponent in Duddy, whose only two losses came to Lyell and Chavez Jr.
Lyell’s win over the Irishman in April of 2009 was easily the high point of his career so far, but he’s planning to top it later this month.
“They picked the wrong guy,” Lyell said of Chavez’s handlers. “They should have picked someone else if they wanted to get a win.”