Arum: Chavez Jr. is ready for Sergio Martinez now

By Boxing News - 07/30/2012 - Comments

Image: Arum: Chavez Jr. is ready for Sergio Martinez nowBy Jason Kim: Bob Arum of Top Rank is one of those promoters that doesn’t tend to make fights unless he’s got a pretty good idea that his fighters are in a good position to win. Arum didn’t want to make the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez fight a year ago because he didn’t feel that Chavez Jr. was in a good position to beat Martinez.

But now that Chavez Jr. has chopped down Sebastian Zbik, Peter Manfredo Jr, and Andy Lee, Arum feels that Chavez Jr. is now ready for Martinez. Arum also is likely making his decision after seeing Martinez look less than spectacular in his last two fights against Matthew Macklin and Darren Barker, both of whom decided to box Martinez rather than going straight at him like most fighters do. Martinez had to create his own offense instead of taking advantage of the mistakes that his opponents made, and he clearly had problems with those styles.

Arum told writer Chris Robinson at Examiner.com “Chavez wasn’t ready to fight Martinez. Now he’s ready. It should be a good, competitive fight. I wasn’t just going to throw Chavez to the wolves and besides, the public wants a competitive fight.”

Chavez Jr. and Martinez will meet on September 15th on HBO PPV at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. This fight could be one of the biggest in 2012, and it’s going to be interesting to see if Arum was right in keeping Chavez Jr. away from Martinez all this time.

It may not matter if Chavez Jr. doesn’t show better defensive skills than he’s shown in his last four fights. Even in his last bout against Andy Lee last June, Chavez Jr. was getting hit an awful lot by Lee. To be sure, Chavez Jr. was able to walk through those shots and really work Lee over in the small ring in El Paso, Texas and score a 7th round TKO win. But Lee didn’t have any real ability to move around the ring because of his slender legs which tend to turn to rubber when he moves too much.

The small ring also helped Chavez Jr. because he was able to catch up to Lee quite easily when Lee did try and move. Martinez is a different animal completely compared to Chavez Jr’s last opponents. Martinez moves well, has excellent power, and he’s very fast. If Chavez Jr. corners him, he may not like what he finds.



Comments are closed.