By Dan Ambrose: Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) is coming into his fight with WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s) a the less popular fighter facing the son of a legend Julio Chavez at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas. Everything is going against Rubio in this fight: The venue, age, speed, weight, reach, height and crowd.

The deck is stacked heavily in the 25-year-old Chavez’s favor here, because Top Rank, the WBC and perhaps even HBO, badly want him to succeed and become a major mega star in the sport. He’s already bringing in huge ratings on HBO and filling stadiums with fans, and yet Chavez Jr. has still faced a real threat before.

Rubio is the closest thing to a threat that Chavez Jr. will have faced. However, Rubio is the top contender for the WBC in a really weak division. There really is only a handful of decent middleweights in the division and thus far Chavez Jr. has fought none of them. Rubio is probably the 10th best fighter in the division, although you’d think he’s the very top the way Chavez’s promoter Bob Arum talks about him.

The crowd is going to be firmly against Rubio in this fight, and that in turn will likely affect the judges. If the crowd is going to be cheering loudly each time Chavez Jr. lands anything and going quiet when Rubio lands, it’s pretty obvious that the judges will give more weight to Chavez’s punches than Rubio’s. T

Chavez is being set up to be the next big thing in the sport and a loss to Rubio can’t happen. This is why I see this as a fight where Rubio absolutely will need a knockout to win. No way do I see him getting a decision over Chavez Jr. in Texas. That’s crazy to even think about it, because it’s not going to happen.