Arum: Chavez Jr. will be fighting in the Summer – but not against Golovkin

By Boxing News - 03/02/2014 - Comments

chavez992By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum will be bringing the newly crowned WBC Continental Americas super middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (48-1-1, 32 KO’s) back to the ring this Summer to fight against an opponent to be determined. Unfortunately for boxing fans it won’t be WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (29-0, 26 KO’s), because his father just past away and he’ll not be fighting for a while.

Instead of Golovkin, Chavez Jr. will likely be taking on another lesser opponent. Hopefully Arum will find an actual super middleweight for Chavez Jr. to fight next instead of having middleweights like Brian Vera move up from the 160 lb division to face the cruiserweight-sized Chavez Jr.

As big as Chavez Jr. looked last night in pounding out a 12 round unanimous decision against Vera, he easily would have looked right at home in the cruiserweight division fighting the likes of Marco Huck. WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev would also have been perfect for Chavez Jr. to have fought last night instead of the much smaller and weaker Vera. Would Arum ever let Chavez Jr. fight someone like Kovalev or Huck? I think that’s a big no. Without his usual huge size advantage over his opponents, I don’t think Chavez Jr. would last more than 5 of 6 rounds against someone like Kovalev.

“Because Golovkin has to postpone his fight [against Andy Lee on April 26th] because of the unfortunate death of his father, we’ll look for another HBO fight and then a pay-per-view in the fall against [Carl] Froch, if he beats George Groves on May 31, or Golovkin or [Jean] Pascal,” Arum said via ESPN.

You did notice how Arum mentioned Froch’s name first before Golovkin. That tells me that Arum prefers that Chavez Jr. fight Froch rather than Golovkin. I can understand that, because the 36-year-old Froch has looked vulnerable in his last two fights against Mikkel Kessler and Groves, and he seems to have slipped a notch or two recently due to age and the wear and tear of some of his difficult fights. It looks like Arum is starting to have second thoughts about wanting to put Chavez Jr. in with Golovkin, and I’m not surprised. Golovkin would tear Chavez Jr. apart if he were to get that fight. We saw last night what Vera was able to do to Chavez Jr’s face, and he’s not a big puncher like Golovkin. You put Chavez Jr. in with Golovkin and he would be beaten badly. All the inside action where Vera was able to make contact with weak punches to Chavez Jr’s head would be much worse for Chavez Jr. with Golovkin throwing those punches.

I don’t know that a Chavez Jr. vs. Jean Pascal fight would interest American boxing fans. That seems like a fight for the Canadian market. I’d be surprised if HBO says yes to that fight because Pascal hasn’t done anything since losing his WBC light heavyweight title to Bernard Hopkins in 2011. Pascal did beat Lucian Bute last January, but Bute looks like a shot fighter now and isn’t what he once was 5 years ago. I don’t see how fans would be interested in seeing Chavez Jr. fight Pascal. Why isn’t Arum trying to match Chavez Jr. against a good light heavyweight that would have an excellent chance of beating Chavez Jr. like Adonis Stevenson or Sergey Kovalev? I guess the answer is obvious. Arum wants to keep Chavez Jr. winning and if he puts him in against Kovalev and/or Stevenson, he’ll get beaten again. Froch and Pascal are much safer fights for Chavez Jr.

What I hope we don’t see is Arum pooling from the middleweight division to find Chavez Jr’s next opponent in the Summer. Chavez Jr’s moved up in weight to the super middleweight division last year, so it’s time that he start fighting guys in his own division instead of continuing to fight middleweights.

Chavez Jr. says he wants to fight Sergio Martinez again if he beats Miguel Cotto in their fight in June. However, how will they ever make a fight between Chavez Jr. and Martinez? Is Arum going to lure the much smaller Martinez up to the super middleweight division to fight Chavez Jr? I can’t see that happening, because Martinez is a small middleweight and he can’t be fighting a nearly 200 lb Chavez Jr.



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