By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants his big money fighter former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (47-1-1, 32 KO’s) to prove that he can beat Brian Vera (23-7, 14 KO’s) without controversy before he moves Chavez Jr. forward with his career against the biggest names in the super middleweight division such as Andre Ward and Carl Froch.
Chavez Jr. defeated Vera by a 10 round controversial unanimous decision last month in Carson, California and few people, aside from a tiny group, saw Chavez Jr. as the winner of that fight.
Due to the controversy that surrounded the decision, Arum plans on matching Chavez Jr. back up with Vera next February in 2014. Arum wanted to put Chavez Jr. and Vera back together in a rematch in December, but HBO doesn’t have any dates available for them to fight.
Arum told ESPN “Chavez needs to be Chavez before you can put him in with the guys he really wants to fight, guys like Andre Ward and Carl Froch. He has to beat this guy [Vera] first.”
Arum says that Chavez Jr. will be getting a trainer to make sure that he makes the 168 lb. limit the next time he fights. Against Vera, Chavez Jr. couldn’t make weight at 168, so the fight was moved to 173. Vera fights in the middleweight division and he looked small compared to Chavez Jr.
The rematch is obviously necessary but you have to wonder why Chavez Jr. or Arum selected a middleweight for him to fight instead of a super middleweight. Dragging Vera up from the 160 lb. division to fight at 173 didn’t make sense and still doesn’t make sense. At some point Chavez Jr. is going to have to make up his mind if he wants to fight middleweights or super middleweights.
You can’t really get your feet wet in fighting at super middleweight if you’re going to take a middleweight with a small frame like Vera and entice him to come up to super middleweight to fight you. Vera is still a middleweight, even if he puts on weight.
Chavez Jr. is going to be over his head once he eventually fights a real super middleweight like Ward, Froch, Mikkel Kessler or Edwin Rodriguez. Those guys look a lot better than Chavez Jr. has ever looked, and he won’t have a huge weight advantage when he fights like he’d enjoyed while campaigning as a middleweight.
Don’t be surprised if Vera beats Chavez Jr. in the rematch. I think Vera is a superior fighter to him and will beat him no matter how many times they fight.
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