By Rob Smith: With only two weeks to go before their big fight in Las Vegas, WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) is still kind of flabby around the neck and jowls for his fight against Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) on September 15th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m not sure what’s missing from Chavez Jr’s training camp because I’ve never seen him so fat before a fight before. Judging from recent photos taken of him on fightnews.com, Chavez Jr has little double chin going and his face looks flabby like he’s been eating too good.
Chavez Jr-Martinez
Chavez Jr vs Martinez boxing news
Sergio Martinez hoping that win over Chavez Jr. will lead to Mayweather fight
By Rob Smith: Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) has some really big hopes for what a win over WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) will potentially do for him when he meets Chavez Jr. on September 15th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Martinez, 37, sees a victory over the young 26-year-old Chavez Jr. as something that could open doors for him to land a big fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and if not it could put him on the doorstep to a big money fight.
Martinez said on Max Kellerman’s Face off on HBO to Chavez Jr “After I beat you, I will be nipping on Mayweather’s heals.”
So is Martinez deluded about his aspirations of wanting to get a big money fight against Mayweather? We’ve seen Robert Guerrero talking up a fight with Mayweather recently, and it’s pretty clear that Guerrero has no chances of ever landing that fight unless Mayweather wants decides on taking an easy stay fight. The 37-year-old Martinez could also be kidding himself if he thinks that Mayweather will show any interest in fighting him.
Chavez Jr says to Martinez: You can’t get away from me inside the ring
By Rob Smith: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) believes that his opponent Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) will be using a lot of movement on September 15th to try and keep away from his heavy pressure in their HBO fight at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, the 26-year-old Chavez Jr. doesn’t see Martinez having much success in trying to keep away from him.
Chavez Jr. said to Max Kellerman of HBO on their recent Chavez Jr-Martinez face off with Kellerman: “The ring is square like this. [Chavez Jr. then uses his hand to draw an imaginary square on the table]. You can’t get out.”
Martinez: “Neither can you.”
Martinez will likely fight Chavez Jr. as he’d done against past slow-footed sluggers such as Kelly Pavlik and Alex Bunema by using constant movement mixed in with periodic attacks. Martinez probably won’t throw a lot of punches, but he’ll make his shots count by landing the harder shots. The much heavier Chavez Jr. has little choice but to try and cut off the ring on Martinez to try and force to fight on the inside, as Chavez Jr. doesn’t have great skills on the outside, and he won’t be able to move a lot without taking a big risk that he may tire out like we’ve seen him do in some of his past fights. Tiring out against a fighter like Matt Vanda is one thing, but if Chavez Jr. fades against Martinez he could get knocked out.
Tony Weeks to referee Chavez Jr-Martinez fight on September 15th
By Rob Smith: American Tony Weeks will be the referee for the September 15th fight between WBC junior middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) and Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) in their fight on HBO pay per view at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Weeks has a good reputation for letting the fighters fight without constantly getting in the way, breaking the fighters and penalizing like some referees. His presence should not impede the flow of the fight thankfully.
There’s not much for Weeks to really watch for in this fight other than Chavez Jr. perhaps using his size and weight advantage to push/bump Martinez to force him to the ropes. Chavez Jr. will likely be the much heavier fighter on fight night on September 15th, and if he weighs in at 180 lbs or more, it will give him a big enough weight advantage over Martinez to where he’ll be able to bull around the ring like he did against Marco Antonio Rubio. Martinez is expected to come into the fight around 165 lbs like he normally does.
Chavez Jr’s size advantage might not matter, though, unless the ring is really tiny like it was in Chavez Jr’s last fight against Andy Lee last June in El Paso, Texas. If it’s a normal sized ring then Martinez will be able to move around to avoid Chavez Jr’s attacks. Even if it’s a small one.
Chavez Jr. will have run out of challenges at 160 lbs if he gets past Sergio Martinez
By Rob Smith: If WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is able to get past 37-year-old Sergio Martinez next month on September 15th, Chavez Jr. will have for the most part run out of opponents for him to face. If he chooses to stay at 160 lbs beyond that point in time he’ll likely be limiting himself in terms of important fights that boxing fans to see.
At 6’0″ 180 pounds, Chavez Jr. has the size to compete at super middleweight, light heavyweight and cruiserweight. He’s already too big for the middleweight division, as we’ve seen already with him looking like a hulk next to smaller fighters that look several weight divisions smaller than him. There really won’t be any reason for Chavez Jr. to stay at middleweight once Martinez is out of the way, because all that will be left is guys like Peter Quillin, Felix Sturm, Gennady Golovkin, Daniel Geale and Dimitriy Pirog. Those are fine fighters, but none of them are really well known in the United States except with hardcore boxing fans.
Chavez Jr. really needs to move up to super middleweight after the Martinez fight so that he can take on the top guys in this division. There are a lot of fighters that Chavez Jr. can make good money against, such as Carl Froch, Andre Ward, Mikkel Kessler, Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell, Edwin Rodriguez, Adonis Stevenson and Thomas Oosthuizen. This division is absolutely loaded with talent and it would be interesting to see if Chavez Jr. would succeed at this level.
Julio Cesar Chavez Junior’s Matchmaker Tells Ringtv.com “Chavez Jr. Is Knocking Sergio Martinez Out!”
By James Slater: A year or so ago, fans either labelled the fight a mismatch or a joke, while others still said it would never actually happen anyway. I’m talking about the fast-approaching genuine grudge-match that is September 15th’s Sergio Gabriel Martinez-Julio Cesar Chavez Junior middleweight title fight showdown.