By Francisco Guzman

Trainer Freddie Roach takes some of the blame for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.'s lopsided defeat last Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Sergio Martinez, now the WBC middleweight champion, easily swept the first eleven rounds of the fight. It was only in the twelfth round when Chavez (46-1-1, 32KOs) finally let his hands go and dropped Martinez hard. Martinez was stunned badly and seemed to be out on his feet, but Chavez couldn't finish him.

Roach felt Chavez was one punch away from a knockout victory, but made a mistake by pushing Martinez down and stopping the flow of the action for several seconds.

"He didn't fight a good fight. He fought one good round. If he would have did that earlier, he would have knocked him out. He blew a big opportunity. His training scheduled was kind of sporadic, and that was probably our fault for letting him get away with it. Next time if it does happen again - I will go home," Roach said.

"He was strong in the twelfth round, but he didn't do much in the early rounds to get tired. I think he lost eleven rounds and won one round and I'm not satisfied with that. If he didn't push [Martinez] down, in what I call the second knockdown - he probably would have finished him because he was one more punch away from knocking him out. It was unfortunate because it would have been the best comeback of all time."