By Michael Collins: Sergio Martinez is out as WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s next opponent. In place of the hard hitting Martinez, Chavez Jr. will be facing number #1 ranked World Boxing Council contender Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) on February 4th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
This fight is no less dangerous for Chavez Jr. than a fight against Martinez, because Rubio can punch with big power all night long. Rubio says he wants to knock Chavez Jr. and expose what a fake he is as a champion. It’s pretty clear that Rubio doesn’t have much respect for Chavez Jr. after seeing some of his fights, and like a lot of people, he sees Chavez Jr. as someone that somehow isn’t legit. This is going to be Chavez’s chance to prove that he’s the real thing because for the time in his career he’ll be facing someone that has some power and can really give some problems.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Chavez Jr. deals with the power shots from Rubio. Chavez Jr. was hit cleanly quite often in his win over Zbik last June. It’s scary to think of Rubio landing those same shots with his kind of power. I know Chavez Jr. can take a punch but there are limits of what any fighter can take when they don’t have any head movement like Chavez Jr. His trainer Freddie Roach had Chavez Jr. running around the ring a little in his recent win over Manfredo. It’s not hard to imagine that’s what Roach’s game plan will be to try and defeat Rubio. Roach teaches his fighters to move rather than to try and defend in a pocket.
That’s all well and good when they have the stamina to move for 12 rounds, but when you’ve got a fighter like Chavez, who tends to come in very heavy for his middleweight fights, he could run out of gas if he tries to move around the ring for more than four or five rounds to escape the punches from Rubio.
Rubio flattened David Lemieux by a 7th round TKO last year in April to become the mandatory challenger for Chavez Jr. He still had to wait for Chavez Jr. to take a nice safe voluntary defense against Peter Manfredo Jr. last November. Chavez had no worries because Manfredo didn’t have the power to really threaten him the way that Rubio will on February 4th.
Chavez Jr. won his title last June with a win over WBC champion Sebastian Zbik by a 12 round decision. Zbik had little power and he had recently been given the WBC title by the World Boxing Council, who stripped it from Martinez for fighting Sergiy Dzinziruk instead of Zbik. It worked out perfectly for Chavez Jr. because he didn’t have to fight Martinez and get knocked out. It was kind of strange the way the WBC hurriedly stripped Martinez rather than letting him get the fight with Dzinziruk and go on and defend the title against Zbik after that fight. But I’m sure Chavez Jr. was pleased.