Chavez Jr. vs. Rowland on Cotto-Pacquiao undercard on Nov 14th – News

By Chris Williams: Whether you want to see him or not, it looks like boxing fans will be stuck watching unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (40-0-1, 30 KO’s) on the undercard of the November 14th bout between Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chavez Jr., 23, has been added to the card and surprise, surprise, will be facing another B level fighter, this one Troy Rowland (25-2, 7 KO) in a scheduled 10-round bout.

The reason Chavez Jr. was added is because Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, also promotes Chavez, so this is a great opportunity to give Chavez Jr. some publicity, even if it’s against another of a long line of B class opponents that the 40-0 Chavez has faced since turning pro six years ago in 2003. Ranked number #3 in the World Boxing Council and WBO, you would think that Chavez Jr. would have faced at least one top level fighter by this point in his career given his high ranking.

He’s been ranked in the top five for almost a year now, and yet we’re still waiting on Chavez fighting a top level opponent. It looks like we’re going to be waiting a little longer now. There’s talk of Chavez Jr. fighting John Duddy, a 10 ranked middleweight in 2010, but that would hinge on Chavez beating Rowland. Even that fight, is hardly interesting because Duddy was badly exposed by Billy Lyell, who beat Duddy by a 10 round split decision in April. If Arum wants to match Chavez with a decent – not great – fighter, then put him in with Lyell and not Duddy. It looks like Chavez is going to continue to have his record padded with these fights. I can’t wait until Chavez steps it up.

It could be that Arum is putting Chavez on the card to try and lure Mexican fans into purchasing the November 14th card in the same way that they, in mass numbers, purchased the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight card on September 19th. That’s a wise move by Arum, although Chavez Jr. isn’t anywhere near the same class of fighter as Marquez. However, the Mexican public might be lured into wanting to see Chavez because of his famous father.

I could care less about seeing the Chavez-Rowland fight and will be purchasing the fight to see the Pacquiao-Cotto fight only. I just don’t like watching low quality fighters and I see Chavez as being very low in talent. Maybe someday he’ll be good enough to be a bottom 15 fighter, but right now I see him as a 2nd tier fighter whose ranking is vastly inflated. Even if he was fighting Duddy on the undercard, I would not interested in seeing this. Duddy has a similar inflated record with almost zero quality wins. I don’t know what you could call a fight between those two fights – “The king of the Bs”?

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