By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez is counting on getting a fight against WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (43-0-1, 30 KO’s) in the first part of 2012. If not, then Martinez will go ahead and fight #1 WBC ranked contender Marco Antonio Rubio in place of Chavez Jr. However, Martinez is really hoping that the 25-year-old Chavez agrees to take the fight because Martinez wants that fight in the worst way.

Martinez’s adviser Sampson Lewkowicz said this to ringtv: “He [Martinez] has said ‘Let Chavez fight, and then he can face me in the first quarter of next year.’ So we’re talking about February or March that we hope to fight Chavez. If not, then we think that it’s going to be Rubio.”

Martinez really shouldn’t waste his time trying to get a fight with Chavez. It’s probably not going to happen until Martinez is showing that he’s a shot fighter or badly slipping. Chavez’s promoters probably aren’t too keen on feeding him to Martinez to be chewed up, and that’s only natural.

Martinez has super middleweights that badly want to fight him and he’s not going after them. He’s picking fighters that he knows he can beat like Chavez. Martinez probably won’t get the Chavez Jr fight and will have to settle for Rubio. That’s not a bad opponent. I personally think Rubio is better than Chavez.

The difference here, though, is that Rubio doesn’t bring in the big money that Chavez does. For his part, Chavez Jr. will get matched up against either Miguel Cotto or Saul Alvarez next year. Those are the guys that Chavez’s promoter Bob Arum wants to match him against and you can bet he’s not going to let Martinez step in between before Arum has made a good payday for Chavez.