Duddy vs. Chavez Jr. – Will Julio fail under Roach’s guidance?

Photo credit: Rafael Soto/Top Rank – By Jason Kim: On Saturday night, undefeated light middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will be looking to bring pride and happiness to his new trainer Freddie Roach by defeating John Duddy (29-1, 18 KO’s) at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas. Roach hasn’t had too many pupils that have failed recently, and he’s hoping that the young Chavez Jr. will continue his success and keep people seeing him as having the golden touch when it comes to molding incomplete fighters and turning them into champions.

However, it seems that Roach is less than his confident self when it comes to Chavez Jr though, as he’s said repeatedly that he’s only had six weeks to work with Chavez Jr. and that’s not enough time. True, it’s not much time but people will likely hammer Roach anyway if Chavez gets his backside handed to him by Duddy on Saturday night.

What’s surprising is that Roach even decided to train Chavez in the first place, because Roach is at the point in his career where he mainly trains fighters that have a lot of talent and have an excellent chance at winning a title. Chavez Jr. isn’t as talented as many of Roach’s fighters and it’s hard to say whether he can ever win a title in the light middleweight or middleweight divisions.

It’s difficult to imagine Chavez ever winning a world title in any division. He’s currently ranked number one by the WBC in the light middleweight division but the ranking is pretty much meaningless because Chavez hasn’t beaten anyone yet and for him to capture a title at that weight, he would have to beat fighters like Antonio Margarito and Kermit Cintron.

I just don’t see Chavez having the ability to beat either of those fighters in this lifetime. But that won’t stop Chavez from getting huge paydays if he can get by Duddy this Saturday. You can bet that Chavez, if he beats Duddy, will be put in with Miguel Cotto next, even though Duddy is far from being the best in the middleweight division.

It doesn’t matter. Chavez has his famous father’s name and will get put in with Cotto regardless. Roach has to know that Chavez would stand no chance against Cotto and would likely get slaughtered fast in a brutal defeat. Roach probably knows full well that he won’t he probably won’t be able to do much in helping Chavez beat the likes of Cotto. However, just getting by Duddy is really where Roach’s training can be measured, because there may not be a trainer on earth that could make Chavez good enough to beat a fighter like Cotto.

Chavez has struggled against the B level fodder that has been spoon fed to him in the past year, and Cotto isn’t a B level fighter. But the idea is to make Chavez good by beating Duddy, a fringe middleweight contender, and then putting Chavez in a big money fight against Cotto or some other popular fighter for Chavez to hit the jackpot for what could be the one and only time in his career.

Roach has to get Chavez by Duddy for him to get the big money fight, but there’s no telling what Chavez will do when put in with a decent fighter like Duddy. Chavez could fall apart completely because he’s looked next to horrible in his fights against B level opponents lately and Duddy is a step above the fighters that Chavez has been getting served up to him.

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