By Dan Ambrose: Although Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s) did beat the WBC appointed World Boxing Council middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik last June to capture the WBC strap, No.1 ranked challenger Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) reportedly doesn’t recognize the 25-year-old Chavez Jr. as a real champion and instead sees him as nothing more than just a paper champion whom he has to beat to win the title.

Rubio, 31, fights Chavez Jr. next month on February 4th in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Rubio plans on knocking out Chavez Jr, the son of boxing legend Julio Cesar Chavez, in front of what will likely be a sold out Alamodome, as well as in front of all the boxing fans that will be watching the fight in high numbers on HBO.

Chavez Jr. has made it this far in his career without really having to face anyone remotely as dangerous as Rubio. The closest thing to Rubio that Chavez Jr. has faced was Zbik, a German non-puncher who the World Boxing Council gave the WBC title to after having striped it from Sergio Martinez. That’s the guy that Chavez Jr. should be fighting right now instead of Rubio, but Chavez decided to ask WBC president Jose Sulaiman for the right to bypass the Martinez mandated title defense and take what he likely believes is the lesser threat in facing Rubio.

Not surprisingly, Sulaiman agreed to let Chavez Jr. take the Rubio fight. However, Rubio thinks Chavez Jr. is for a world of hurt anyway because he’s going to be looking to KO him like he knocked out the other highly hyped fighter David Lemieux last year by a 7th round TKO last April. Rubio had too much power and skills for Lemieux in that fight and it turned out to be a bad mistake for Lemieux to have agreed to take the fight in the first place.