Two judges saved Chávez against Whitaker, then Frankie Randall beat him

The Alamodome in San Antonio had been open for less than four months when Julio César Chávez and Pernell Whitaker fought there on Friday 10 September 1993. It was the first big event in the building. The fight was billed simply as "The Fight".

Chávez was 87–0, with 75 knockouts, and had held five world titles at three weights. He was still the WBC light-welterweight champion, and he came up to challenge Whitaker for the WBC welterweight title. Whitaker was 32–1. In March 1988 he had lost to José Luis Ramírez, whom Chávez beat later that year. "This fight is the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA finals," Whitaker said. "It's boxing's two best fighters."

Whitaker weighed 145lb and Chávez 142lb. The referee was Joe Cortez, and the judges were Jack Woodruff of Dallas, Mickey Vann of England and Franz Marti of Switzerland. The crowd, more than 60,000 according to the Associated Press, was largely Mexican-American.

Twelve rounds

Sports Illustrated scored it round by round. Whitaker spent the first two backing off and throwing the occasional right jab. In the third, after an adjustment in his corner, he landed three jabs in a row. He was in control in the fourth, and Chávez was frustrated. The fifth was Chávez's best round, with sharp combinations. In the sixth a Whitaker left landed low and Cortez stopped the action, but no point was taken. Whitaker won the sixth, seventh and eighth clearly, Chávez came back with hooks and right hands in the ninth, and Whitaker took the last three decisively. SI made it nine rounds to three.

The draw

Woodruff scored it 115–113 for Whitaker. Vann and Marti both had it 115–115. It was a majority draw. Whitaker kept his title and Chávez kept his unbeaten record. The decision, AP reported, "was greeted with a smattering of boos from the pro-Mexican crowd of more than 60,000 and it left no one satisfied".

The ringside press scored it for Whitaker: AP and Newsday 116–112, The Ring and Sports Illustrated 117–111, the Washington Post 115–113. The next issue of Sports Illustrated put Whitaker on the cover under one word: "ROBBED!" Its report noted that "Marti and Vann are fixtures at fights sanctioned by the WBC, an organization synonymous with Don King, Chàvez's promoter."

Lou Duva said: "Vann and Marti are W.B.C. officials," he said. "These guys get trips all over the world; they're beholden to Sulaiman and King." He added: "This is the second time this has happened to one of our fighters with Chávez." He meant Meldrick Taylor. Whitaker's camp protested, but the result stood.

"I don't think there was an outcry," Vann said. "Some people thought one guy won; some people thought the other did. Who's right? We're right. I got it right, and that's it." Marti said: "Not everybody knows how to score a professional fight."

"Last night it was like someone put a knife in me and twisted it," Whitaker said. He also had a message: "I want to tell the world that I beat the unbeatable. From now on they're all going to look at me and say, 'There's the guy who beat Julio Cèsar Chàvez.'"

Chávez told AP: "I felt I won the fight. I'm not happy with the referee." To Sports Illustrated he said: "I feel a little bit beat up. It was a difficult fight. Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything better." He told Whitaker: "We'll make mucho dinero in the rematch."

Frankie Randall

Chávez had two more fights, and on 29 January 1994 he defended his light-welterweight title against Frankie Randall at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The arena had opened on New Year's Eve with a Barbra Streisand concert, and this was its first boxing show, a Don King promotion called the "Super Grand Slam of Boxing". It was Chávez's 14th defence of the WBC belt.

Randall was 32, from Morristown, Tennessee, and 48–2–1. He was a heavy underdog. "The Whitaker fight showed that movement is most effective against Chavez," he said, "and I'm going to use it to my advantage." Chávez was 89–0–1. The referee was Richard Steele, who had stopped the first Meldrick Taylor fight with two seconds left.

Steele took a point from Chávez for low blows in the seventh round and another in the 11th. Late in the 11th Randall countered with a right hand and Chávez went down for the first time in his professional career. He was up at three.

The judges split. Chuck Giampa scored it 116–111 for Randall and Angel Luis Guzmán 114–113 for Randall. Abraham Chavarría had Chávez ahead 114–113. Without the two deducted points, Chávez would have won. Instead Randall was the WBC light-welterweight champion, and Chávez had his first official defeat.

"I'm very upset with Richard Steele," Chávez said. "I protest Richard Steele's actions." He told the Associated Press: "You can't lose a fight with one fall. I thought I won. I respect Frankie Randall, but out of 12 rounds he won three. He never hurt me. How could I lose?"

"Look at the TV," said Steele. "That's all I've got to say."

"I'm not a judge, I'm just a fighter," said Randall. He said he would have accepted any verdict: "I don't make the decision, I just accept it. I was ready to accept anything that came out, but I thought I did a hell of a job." Randall added: "I made it. I went through hell getting here, but I got it."

Whitaker was asked about it by telephone the next day. "I was surprised, yet not really surprised," he said. "I figure that tough fight he had with me took a lot out of him. He'd never been through that before."

Rematches

They fought again at the MGM Grand on 7 May 1994, with Mills Lane as referee. An accidental clash of heads cut Chávez over the right eye, and the fight was stopped after eight rounds on the order of the ringside doctor, Flip Homansky. Chávez had not told the referee whether he wanted to go on. Under the WBC's rules the cards were totalled, and Randall was docked a point for the accidental butt. It became known as "the Frankie Randall rule". The scores were 77–74 and 76–75 for Chávez and 76–75 for Randall, and Chávez had his title back on a technical split decision.

"I don't like winning this way," Chávez said. "I don't want any controversy. I wanted to win without any doubt." Randall said: "There was no way I should've been behind on anyone's card. I dominated."

On 17 September 1994, at the same arena, Chávez gave Meldrick Taylor his rematch. Taylor started quickly with combinations and footwork, but Chávez's body punching and pressure wore him down, and a right hand hurt him in the sixth. In the eighth Chávez dropped him with a left hook. Taylor got up at eight and was stopped seconds later, unable to defend himself. "Unlike the first contest," Boxing Only wrote, "there was time left."

Oscar De La Hoya

On 7 June 1996 Chávez defended against Oscar De La Hoya in an outdoor arena at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Chávez was 96–1–1 and De La Hoya 21–0, and De La Hoya was the favourite. According to Bleacher Report more than $32 million was bet on the fight, a record. Before it Chávez said: "I'm an authentic Mexican. He's not a true Mexican. He has American nationality."

Within the first minute Chávez was cut beside the left eye. The cut kept opening. In the fourth round the ringside doctor, Flip Homansky, examined it, and at 2:37 of the round the referee, Joe Cortez, stopped the fight. De La Hoya was the WBC light-welterweight champion.

"I saw the cut open, but I still kept my composure," De La Hoya said. "One thing about me, I can focus up in that ring. Julio Cesar Chavez is my idol. But my job is to win fights. Up in that ring, I had no feeling whatsoever for Chavez." In another remark he called Chávez "a true warrior" and "a true champion", but said "the blood, the cut, the broken nose was affecting".

Chávez said afterwards that the cut had been opened in training, and that De La Hoya's punches had not hurt him. During the fight George Foreman had said on HBO, in the first round: "That cut was opened in training, you can believe that."

"For somebody to say that his opponent doesn't hit hard, that he's a no-good fighter, it hurts my feelings," De La Hoya said. "I think I deserve a little bit of credit," he added.

Afterwards

They fought again on 18 September 1998, for De La Hoya's WBC welterweight title at the Thomas & Mack Center, and Chávez's corner retired him after the eighth round. "I have nothing against him, even though he beat me twice," Chávez said later. "De La Hoya was younger than me during our fight, and I was on my way out of boxing." As his career came to an end, Marco Antonio Barrera and Érik Morales both wanted to be the Mexican fighter who took his place.

In 1999 he lost a decision to Willy Wise. In 2000, aged 38, he was stopped in six rounds by Kostya Tszyu for the WBC light-welterweight title. He retired in 2001, came back in 2003 and 2004, and in 2004 beat Frankie Randall over ten rounds in their third fight. His last fight, in Phoenix in September 2005, ended with him retiring on his stool with a hand injury. His record was 107–6–2, with world titles at super-featherweight, lightweight and light-welterweight. He was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in December 2010 and inducted at Canastota, New York, in June 2011, alongside Mike Tyson, Kostya Tszyu and Sylvester Stallone.

In 2015 he talked to NPR about alcohol and cocaine. He said he had had money, women, fame, cars and yachts, "everything a man could want", but that "it didn't give my life meaning". "I felt nothing," he said. According to NPR, his son took him, unconscious, to a rehabilitation clinic about four years earlier. "I woke up in the clinic in a room with the IV still in my arm, and I just ripped it out and started cussing at everyone," he said. He stayed nearly six months and, NPR reported, had been clean since. He went on to open rehabilitation clinics in Tijuana and in Sinaloa.