By Dan Ambrose: Right about now Bob Arum, the promoter for WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s), has a lot of soul searching to do after the World Boxing Council mandated in their last meeting that Arum’s fighter Chavez Jr. must fight former WBC champ Sergio Martinez (48-2-2, 27 KO’s) next.

Chavez Jr. can’t squeeze in a voluntary defense against Miguel Cotto or Marco Antonio Rubio before the Martinez bout. What this means is that unless Arum is willing to put his cash cow Chavez Jr. I with Martinez, he’ll likely get his WBC title stripped from him by the World Boxing Council.

Chavez Jr. can vacate the belt before it’s stripped from him but in either case he’s going to look bad in the eyes of the boxing public, who have been waiting for many years for Chavez Jr. to finally face a real threat. Chavez won the WBC title earlier this year against Sebastian Zbik, who had the title given to him by the WBC rather than having to earn it in the ring.

Chavez beat Zbik but hardly impressed. Chavez Jr. looked horrible in that fight, but did enough to get the win. In his first defense, Chavez Jr. defeated Peter Manfredo Jr. by a 5th round TKO. This came after Chavez Jr. attempted to fight a voluntary defense against fringe contender Ronald Hearns, but the fight failed to materialize when Chavez Jr. injured his hand on a ceiling fan.

Martinez has wanted to get his WBC title back for a long time but has been ignored by both Zbik and Chavez Jr. Now Martinez is poised to get his title back one way or another. Either Chavez fights him and loses the belt in the ring or either vacates or has it stripped from him by the WBC.

Arum badly wants to match Chavez Jr. with Cotto while Chavez Jr. still has an unbeaten record. The fight will lose all it’s luster once Chavez Jr. no longer has an unbeaten record. This is why we’ll likely see Chavez Jr. vacate his belt in the coming weeks/months rather than getting blown out by Martinez.