By Dan Ambrose: With former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (48-1-1, 32 KOs) having signed recently with adviser Al Haymon, Chavez Jr expects to be back in the ring in early 2015 on either February 28th or March 7th, according to Thaboxingvoice.com.
The possible opponents are IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch, Anthony Dirrell or Bernard Hopkins in that order. Froch is the leading candidate for Chavez Jr. But if that fight fails to take place, then Dirrell, the WBC super middleweight champion, will be next in line. He has a title and he’s unbeaten.
It would give Chavez Jr an opportunity to fight for a world title at 168, and it would be the first time that he’s faced an actual super middleweight. Since Chavez Jr moved up in weight to the 168 pound division in 2013, he’s twice dragged up middleweight Brian Vera to fight him instead of fighting a legitimate super middleweight.
Chavez Jr looked poor in both fights against Vera, and you can make a strong argument that Chavez Jr would have been soundly beaten had he fought a good super middleweight instead of fighting the much smaller and lighter Vera.
Froch would give Chavez Jr an opportunity to win a super middleweight title. However, beating him would be a long shot because he’s got a lot of power, and he’s not tiny middleweight. It would give Chavez Jr a good payday, but it would be the least winnable fight of the three. Chavez Jr would have a decent but not great chance of beating Dirrell, and he would have a fairly good chance of beating Hopkins. But Froch is in his prime, and he’s fighting at too high of a level right now for a limited fighter like Chavez Jr to beat him.
Ideally, it would be better for Chavez Jr to take his time by easing his way into the super middleweight division instead of jumping straight into a fight against Froch, Dirrell or Hopkins, but it doesn’t look like Chavez Jr is interested in taking things slowly. He’s had two fights against middleweight Vera and now he seems to be ready to fight quality opposition again. It’s not likely to go well for Chavez Jr, because of how poor he looked against Vera and against Sergio Martinez.
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