IN the 1960s Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass recorded a sad, chilling instrumental called The Lonely Bull which movingly conveyed the cheering, blood-thirsty crowds and the brutality of the bull ring.
As horns blared and the brave bull is about to be butchered, you can feel the poor beast’s pain. That could have been the soundtrack to Julio Cesar Chavez’s destruction at the fists of Kostya Tszyu at the Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum in Pheonix, Arizona on July 29, 2000.
Chavez, Mexico’s Grande Campeon, was sent crashing to his knees in the sixth – only the second knockdown of his 115-fight pro career – and nearly belted out of the ring a minute later before his seconds leaped on to the apron to halt the shameful mismatch at 1-30 of the round.
“The punch was not hard. It was just the timing,” Tszyu said of his beautifully timed right cross that floored 38-year-old Chavez.
“Chavez is a great warrior,” Tszyu said. “People know me now around the world because I fought a legend and won.”
30-year-old Tszyu, the Russian based in Sydney, made the second defence of the WBC light-welterweight crown he won against Mexico’s Miguel Angel Gonzalez in 1999.
