By Chris Williams: Bob Arum is hoping that he can transform WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s) from being a popular fighter among a certain segment of fans into a huge attraction that could eventually be a pay per view star in the United States. It’s hard to imagine Chavez Jr., a fighter that struggles to make the 160 pound limit pretty much every time, as a future star in America.

Chavez Jr. looks too average and seems to be getting over on his size rather than talent. However, Arum is moving him slowly but surely upward while Chavez’s trainer Freddie Roach teaches him new things from fight to fight.

Chavez Jr. will fight Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) this Saturday night in San Antonio, Texas, while Martinez will be fighting Matthew Macklin on March 17th.

Arum doesn’t want to match Chavez Jr. (with the middleweight division’s best fighter in Sergio Martinez. Arum instead is going to duck that fight and strategically match Chavez Jr. against guys that he knows he can beat with a high degree of certainty. The World Boxing Council could be the thing that gets in the way of Arum having Chavez Jr. avoid Martinez but that’s highly unlikely. The WBC failed to force Chavez Jr. to fight Martinez recently even when they previously said he had to.

Arum said this to mysanantonio.com: “This [Chavez-Rubio] is a big fight all over Mexico. He’s [Chavez Jr.] an attraction. It’s our job to make him into a super attraction.”

It’s scary to imagine Chavez Jr. being a PPV star along the lines of Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Cotto in the U.S. I know the middleweight is incredibly weak right now, but it would be sad if Arum was able to create a star out of Chavez Jr. like he did with Pacquiao and then have him avoid Martinez or the other serious threats in the same way that Pacquiao for some reason hasn’t been put in with Mayweather Jr. all these years. It would be hard to take Chavez Jr. serious if he’s able to become a star without facing Martinez, Dmitriy Pirog, or Gennady Golovkin

For Arum to realize that dream, he’s going to have to keep Chavez Jr. away from certain guys. Rubio is slight danger but not a serious threat because he was basically punching bag for David Lemieux and Kelly Pavlik in the past, and he’s still the same fighter that fought in both of those fights. He did beat Lemieux but only after taking savage punishment for five rounds. Rubio can’t take that kind of punishment and come out on top against Chavez Jr. He’ll fall apart or the referee will halt the fight.

If Chavez Jr. can get past Rubio, then he’ll have at least year or two before he’s forced to fight anyone good. The WBC has the following fighters listed in this order: #2 Sebastian Zbik, #3 Matthew Macklin, #4 Billi Facundo Godoy, #5 Avtandil Khurtsidze. Chavez Jr. can probably beat all of them, although Macklin will be a serious problem for him. Arum will likely put Chavez Jr. in with his fighter Miguel Cotto next for a payday bout. It’s unclear if this will be a title fight or without the WBC title on the line. It would be better if the title wasn’t on the line so that Chavez Jr. can still have his WBC strap in case things go badly for him.