Done deal.. I'm fighting Andrzej Fanfora April 18..

— Julio Cesar Chavez (@jcchavezjr1) January 20, 2015

By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (48-1-1, 32 KOs) says he’ll be facing former world title challenger Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs) on April 18th at a venue still to be determined. It’s unknown at this time if this will be the 28-year-old Chavez Jr’s final fight of his contract with Top Rank, but you would have to believe that it is.

It’s the perfect fight for Chavez Jr, because the 27-year-old Poland born Fonfara is a plodder who tends to stand directly in front of his opponents trying to slug it out with them.

Chavez Jr and Top Rank have been going back and forth in terms of promotional issues. Chavez Jr thinks he’s a free agent whereas Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says Chavez Jr still has one fight left on his contract.

If all he has to do is fight Fonfara to end the contract then Chavez Jr is getting away pretty easily. I’m sure Arum would love for that fight final to be against IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch of WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin if he could get Chavez Jr to agree to either of those fights.

Facing a light heavyweight makes sense for Chavez Jr, because he’s basically a light heavyweight/cruiserweight in size. He has to melt down to make the super middleweight limit, and he still has never even faced a 168 pound fighter. Chavez Jr’s last two fights were against middleweight Brian Vera.

Fonfara, #4 WBC, was beaten by WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson by a 12 round decision in May of last year. For the most part, Fonfara was a punching bag for Stevenson for the majority of the rounds. However, he did drop Stevenson in the 8th round of the fight.

Stevenson came back in the 9th and dominated the action for the final four rounds of the fight to get the victory. In Fonfara’s next fight, he defeated little known fighter Doudou Ngumbu by a 10 round decision last November in a dull mismatch.

Chavez Jr has had two consecutive fights against Brian Vera in his last two bouts and looked rather poor in both of them. He’s not looked good in at least three years in a fight, and he’s kind of been forgotten about since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012.

When Chavez Jr was successfully defending his WBC middleweight crown, he was blowing up in weight after rehydrating and coming into his fights looking like a big light heavyweight/cruiserweight in beating guys like Andy Lee, Marco Antonio Rubio and Peter Manfredo Jr.

It was only a matter of time before Chavez Jr could no longer make the 160 pound weight class, and that time has arrived. He moved up in weight to super middleweight in September 2013 in his fight against middleweight Brian Vera, but he couldn’t make the weight and the fight was held at light heavyweight. Chavez Jr did make weigh for their rematch last year in March, but he’s still not faced an actual super middleweight for some reason.

It’ll be interesting to see how Chavez Jr does against a light heavyweight in this fight with Fonfara. As long Chavez Jr isn’t weight drained, he should be okay because Fonfara is a punch magnet. He’s there to be hit and his main asset is his ability to take punches and keep coming forward.