By Allan Fox: Tomorrow night I think we may be seeing WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (45-0-1, 31 KO’s) finally tasting defeat after nine years of careful matchmaking to build an undefeated record. Chavez Jr. will be facing Andy Lee (28-1, 20 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas in what will be easily the toughest opponent of Chavez Jr’s career.

At Friday’s weigh-in, Chavez Jr. looked badly weight-drained, more so than he’s looked in the past. In this case, Chavez Jr. looks like he’s lost more than just water weight. He looks like he’s lost muscle with effort to make it down to 160. I think it’s going to cost him the fight tomorrow night against Lee. Chavez Jr. would likely be in deep, deep trouble against Lee no matter what kind of shape he’s in, but looking as painfully thin as Chavez Jr. is now, I think he’s going to take a major beating tomorrow night. Chavez Jr. looked really thin, but also much shorter than the 6’2″ Lee. This is a rarity because Chavez Jr. has pretty much always been taller than his opponents. In this fight, he looked at least three inches shorter than Lee. That tells me that the listed height for Chavez Jr. is bogus. He looks like he’s 5’11’ compared to Lee.

Lee looked in great shape at the weigh-in, like he hadn’t had to drain himself at all in order to make the 160 pound limit. That’s not a good sign for Chavez Jr., because he needs Lee to be weakened for him to win this fight, unless the judges come up with some bizarre scores that favor Chavez Jr.

Lee had a great camp, sparring sluggers like Adonis Stevenson and Brian Vera to get ready for the fight. Stevenson is a much better puncher than Chavez Jr,. and I rate Vera a little better than him as well.