Might as well let Chavez have another adios

SAN JOSE, Calif. – For just a flash of a blink of a momentary impulse, Julio Cesar Chavez wanted me to join him on his possibly perpetual “Adios” to boxing tour.

As in: He wanted to adios me right out of my senses.

“You and me, one round!” Chavez stood up and barked to me in clear English, and if you don’t believe he was partly serious, just ask anybody who got a look at his stone-cold glare at the end of his news conference Monday.

“Just one round! You and me, OK?”

Now, if I didn’t know him so well, my feelings might have been hurt by the exchange, which ended with the Mexican boxing icon chuckling and me wondering if the newspaper’s health insurance could possibly cover such a silly endeavor.

But Chavez was merely frustrated by my slightly-less-than-reverential questioning of his “Adios, L.A.” fight at the Staples Center against the washed-up Ivan Robinson on pay-per-view today.

Which follows Chavez’s “Adios, Mexico” fight against the washed-up Frankie Randall in Mexico City last year.

And which, if the L.A. fight is successful, could spawn goodbye fights across the Southwest, with his talented 19-year-old son, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., getting promotional boosts on the undercards.

Which assumes all of us are gullible enough.

I say “all of us” because I do include myself among the gullibles. When it comes to Chavez, I always have.

I was there Monday, wasn’t I? I was there because I’ve always understood the power of Chavez’s unique relationship with the fight community, and it’s not something that vanishes with the wind.

Like the 400 or so fans that turned out to watch the free workout at HP Pavilion after his news conference, I wasn’t there to see a champion in his prime or just past his prime.

I was there because he’s still the legend who won his first 89 fights (or 88 – there’s a dispute). The guy who fought everybody who was anybody from 130 to 140 pounds in the 1980s and ‘90s – he lost a few of them, although many of those decisions are in dispute, also.

The guy who’s a hero to his country, through legal troubles, tax troubles, rumored drug troubles.

But he’s also so far past his prime that even his promoter, Bob Arum, couldn’t remember the last time Chavez won a title fight.

I had to look it up, and I covered many of those record 37 title fights: Chavez’s last title victory came in September 1995, when he won a decision over David Kamau.

Almost 10 years since Chavez won a title fight, and Arum still estimates anywhere from 80,000 to 120,000 pay-per-view purchases today. That’s a pretty nice haul for an irrelevant fight.

“On Saturday you can judge me,” Chavez said through a translator. “I might lose the fight or I’ll look very bad. It will be an embarrassing thing, and I will get out and not insult the people again. …

“But I had a very good fight with Randall in Mexico. I’m not ashamed of myself. I look very good, and I think I’m going to look better.”

Hey, Chavez is persuasive when he points to his lean frame – much leaner than I’ve seen it. He said he stopped going on alcohol binges last December and said he wants his sons to see him fight sober.

He’s not punch-drunk. He’s not alcohol-drunk, either, and I could tell you stories about being around Chavez when he imbibed massive amounts.

But here’s the question that touched a nerve when I asked it: Julio, would you want your son fighting until he’s 42?

First, Chavez, being Chavez, disputed that he was 42, although his July 12, 1962, birth date is listed in his promotional material.

Then Chavez really started looking at me like I was Meldrick Taylor and he was about to hunt me down in the final round.

“What’s your problem to see a guy who’s 42 fighting?” Chavez said. “Did you ask George Foreman why he’s fighting when he was 42? No? Then shhhhh.”

Well, I did ask Foreman that, a few weeks before Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer in 1994 to win the heavyweight title at 45.

That was Chavez’s point.

“I’m not committing any crime,” Chavez said later. “I’m just trying to give back to the people a little of what they’ve given me.”

He’s not doing this because he’s broke or because he’s stupid or because he’s bored or because he’s stubborn. OK, maybe he’s some of those things.

But he’s doing this because he’s Chavez, and because he can. So let him be Chavez. I’m not going to spar with him any more on this, not even for one round. Not even when he really, really wants me to.