From an Abandoned Railway Car to Boxing Immortality

Julio César Chávez grew up in Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa in Mexico, one of ten children. The Ring reported that before the family had a proper home, they lived in an abandoned railway car in the yard where his father, Rodolfo, worked on the trains. They later moved to a two-room house.

His father became a local folk hero in 1974, when he reportedly drove a train full of explosives about ten miles into empty land, saving the town.

As a boy, Chávez sold the town's three local newspapers on the streets, combining it with early-morning roadwork and walking, and collecting as many coins as he could. He hoped to buy his parents a new house, and had promised his mother a house and a world championship. By his own count, he had about 200 street fights before he took up boxing seriously.

After school he trained at a local gym, copying Juan Antonio López, whom he idolised. López introduced him to his first professional trainer, Ramón Félix.

On 13 September 1984, at 22, Chávez won the vacant WBC super featherweight title, stopping Mario Martínez in the eighth round at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. He was 43-0 at the time. He earned $25,000 from the fight, enough to buy a two-storey house for his mother, Isabel, on the land where the railway car had stood. On arriving home in Culiacán he was greeted by a large crowd at the airport. He later said that day changed his life and ended his privacy, and called it the most important day of his career. He went on to win world titles in three weight divisions.