Ariza: Chavez Jr. is going back to 160 after his next fight

By Boxing News - 07/07/2013 - Comments

chavez675By Dan Ambrose: It looks like former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1, 32 KO’s) will be staying at 160 after all. According to his strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, Chavez Jr. will be returning to 160 to continue campaigning as a middleweight after his fight against Brian Vera on September 7th at 168.

I guess the reason for Chavez Jr. fighting at 168 for this fight is because he’s been out of the ring for 10 months because of his suspension for testing positive for marijuana after his loss to Sergio Martinez last September. Taking off all that blubber that Chavez Jr. has put will likely be too difficult for him to make 160.

Ariza said on his twitter “He’s going back to 160.”

I can’t believe Chavez Jr. is going to be returning to 160. Even before his long suspension, he looked to have outgrown the middleweight division at least a couple of years ago.

Why is Chavez Jr. still persisting in fighting in this division? Chavez Jr. looked half-starved in making the weight for his fights against Marco Antonio Rubio, Andy Lee and Sergio Martinez. And after he rehydrated for those fights, Chavez Jr. looked like a solid cruiserweight when he entered the ring.

I wonder if Chavez Jr. spared with some actual super middleweights and found out that his chances of success in this division were slim and none without his normal huge weight advantage over his opponents. I think Chavez Jr. would still have a weight advantage over a lot of the super middleweights, but not the same kind of weight advantage that he enjoys in fighting guys at 160.

That gives Chavez Jr. a HUGE weight advantage when he fights middleweights.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Chavez Jr. can still make 160. Ariza is saying he’s going to be going back down to 160, but that doesn’t mean he’ll actually make the weight. Chavez Jr. is popular enough to still fight whoever his opponent will be at 160 even if he comes in well over the limit for the division. But it’ll hurt Chavez Jr. as far as him being able to capture a world title at 160 if he can make the weight for the division.

The sanctioning bodies aren’t going to make an exception for Chavez Jr. if he comes in over weight.

The sanctioning bodies could make things really easy to hasten Chavez Jr’s move to 168 or 175 by having rehydration limits from keeping from gaining 20+ pounds of water weight after making weight for his fights at 160.

If the sanctioning bodies were to limit the rehydration to 5-10 pounds, it would put Chavez Jr. in a position where he’d likely have to move up in weight unless he wanted to really starve himself to make the weight class.



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