By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he would make a fight between his fighter WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez right now, according to ESPN. Arum says he would forget about Chavez Jr. facing his next opponent, which is slated to be Peter Manfredo Jr., and make the fight between Chavez and Alvarez if Alvarez’s promoters, Golden Boy Promotions, were open to the fight.
As bad as Chavez Jr. looked in barely beating WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik on June 4th by a 12 round decision, it seems like a risky thing for Arum to do putting the unbeaten Chavez Jr. in with a slugger like Alvarez.
However, if you see it another way it’s good fight for Arum to make. The reason why is that Chavez Jr. will likely get beaten in the near future by almost anyone Arum puts him in with. It’s far, far better for Chavez Jr. to fight Alvarez, the number #1 fighter in all of Mexico, and get a huge payday in losing than it would be for Chavez Jr. to get riddled to pieces by someone like Marco Antonio Rubio, Miguel Cotto or Sergio Martinez. The chances are very high that Chavez Jr. will lose to one or all of those fighters. It’s a much better idea for Arum to at least put Chavez Jr. in with Alvarez for a big stadium fight in Mexico City rather than have Chavez Jr. bludgeoned into submission by a guy like Rubio or maybe even Manfredo.
Arum said this in an article by Dan Rafael at ESPN: “We’d scrap plans for Chavez to fight Canelo immediately. Freddie [Roach] wants that fight, the kid [Chavez Jr] that fight, we’re ready. But I don’t think they want the fight.”
It’s a good fight for the future but it would be premature for Alvarez to beat Chavez Jr. now. Alvarez appears to have a much better upside compared to Chavez Jr. and it would be a fight where Alvarez would be doing Chavez Jr. a favor by fighting him now. Alvarez would win, but Arum might be hoping that Chavez Jr. can look good enough to win a lot of fans in Mexico. I kind of doubt it, but I can see where Chavez Jr. in theory could become a bigger star in Mexico if he can at least fight hard and give Alvarez some problems in the process of losing. I really don’t see that happening, though. Alvarez is incredibly talented and very much like a junior middleweight version of Juan Manuel Marquez. But what he lacks right now is big time experience against quality fighters. Chavez Jr. really wouldn’t be someone that Alvarez could learn anything from.
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