By Miguel Rivera

Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been subjected to a wave of criticism for last Saturday's performance against Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.

At the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Chavez Jr. took a beating for twelve rounds in a very one-sided fight. All three judges scored every round for Canelo.

There was a catch-weight in place of 164.5-pounds. Canelo was coming up from the junior middleweight limit of 154, and Chavez Jr. was coming down from 168-pounds.

To ensure he made the contracted weight, Chavez Jr. retained the services of Hall of Fame trainer Nacho Bersitain and conditioning coach Angel "Memo" Heredia.

There was a stiff penalty in place - where Chavez Jr. would have been fined $1 million for every pound over the limit.

According to Chavez Jr., he nearly killed himself by barely eating much of anything for two weeks. He easily made the contract weight, coming in at 164-pounds.

"I can be criticized and rightly so, but nobody knows the superhuman effort I made to make the weight," said Chavez Jr. to ESPN Deportes. "I have taken the criticisms in a good way and I will continue to work hard. In a few weeks I will go to Mexico to train with Nacho Beristáin."

"Nobody thought that I make the weight, but that caused me not to have energy. In the last two weeks I ate very little, and last week I ate almost nothing. My mind wanted [to fight] but my body did not respond to me. I didn't have the strength. The massage [I received before the fight], I don't think that was the cause of my pathetic showing... in the ring that night was undoubtedly the worst performance of my career."

"I have fallen but I'm going to get up. I made the weight and that caused me an emotional unbalance generated by the same decompensation. Just imagine, it was the biggest fine in history for a single pound [over the limit]."

"When you get into the ring you do not go in there to lose. I also feel bad, worse than everyone, worse than my fans, but I made a superhuman effort [to get down in the weight] - that's why Óscar de la Hoya and Canelo asked me to get down to that weight. They knew that I was going to kill myself. I did not want to fail but it didn't work for me."