By Dan Ambrose: WBA light welterweight champion Marcos Maidana is picking WBC Diamond middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) to beat WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) in their long awaited grudge match on September 15th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Maidana told esnewsreporting.com this when asked ‘who will win between Martinez and Chavez Jr: “Sergio Martinez. He’s more of a man. He has more experience.”

Martinez has fought only six more fights compared to the 26-year-old Chavez Jr. However, Martinez has fought much better opposition in my view with fights against Kermit Cintron, Paul Williams, Kelly Pavlik Antonio Margarito, Darren Barker, Matthew Macklin and Sergiy Dzinziruk. In contrast, Chavez Jr’s best opponents during his nine year pro career are as follows: Sebastian Zbik, Peter Manfredo Jr., Marco Antonio Rubio, Andy Lee and John Duddy.

Martinez will have the advantage in speed and power against Chavez Jr. He’ll also have the much better mobility, and that could be key to him winning the fight. As we’ve seen in Chavez Jr’s recent wins over Lee, Zbik and Manfredo Jr., Chavez Jr. does really well against fighters that stand in one place and allow him to come inside to throw his body shots. Chavez Jr. is basically a 6-foot inside fighter with good power when punching to the body.

However, the way to beat an inside fighter is to not allow him to use that part of his game by keeping the fight on the move and using explosive bursts of power against him. Martinez will do really well by using an in and out fighting style which will keep Chavez Jr. from being able to set up to throw his body shots. It doesn’t matter if Chavez Jr. has a 15 to 20 pound weight advantage as well as a small ring to help, he’ll still be helpless if Martinez keeps the fight on the move the entire bout.