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By Dan Ambrose: If former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (48-1-1, 32 KOs) is going to be ready for his fight next month on April 18th against Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs), Chavez Jr is going to need to lose a lot of weight to be ready for the catch-weight fight at 172 pounds.

In a photo the 28-year-old Chavez Jr posted on his Instragram on Sunday, Chavez Jr looks very, very heavy. My guess is Chavez Jr is weighing at least 200 pounds, possibly a little more.

While that wouldn’t be a big deal if he had four months or more to get the weight off in time for his fight, it’s not a good thing given that Chavez Jr has only 48 days to get ready for his fight against Fonfara.

If Chavez Jr’s weight is around 200 pounds then Chavez Jr is going to need to lose close to 30 pounds to make weight for the fight. I don’t expect Chavez Jr to even try. I think it’s pretty obvious that he’ll lose some of the weight, but not all of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZyfhoFo0pU

Chavez Jr will likely lose around 10 pounds, and then dehydrate to take off the remaining 20+ pounds to make the weight. Since this is a non-title fight, Chavez Jr can always miss the weight and have it readjusted before the weigh-in to accommodate his weight. After the weigh-in, we could see Chavez Jr come into the weight around 190+ by the time he finishes rehydrating for the fight the day before the fight.

The Chavez Jr-Fonfara fight will be taking place at the StubHub Center, in Carson, California, USA. This will be a test of Chavez Jr’s drawing power to see if he can still sell out the venue. If not, then that would be a major blow to him, because he’s expected to bring in a huge crowd.

The natural question that a lot of boxing fans have about Chavez Jr is why he simply doesn’t officially move up in weight to light heavyweight so that he can fight at the full weight of the 175 pound division instead of him fighting at catch-weights at 172 pounds.

The obvious answer is that Chavez Jr likely wants to keep himself nearer to fighters like Carl Froch, Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. If Chavez Jr can stay close to the 168 pound division then he improves his chances of getting fights against those guys.

If Chavez Jr moves up to light heavyweight, he’ll be pressured to fight the likes of Adonis Stevenson, Jean Pascal and Sergey Kovalev, and those guys would likely destroy Chavez Jr in one-sided fights. Without Chavez Jr’s weight advantage that he has had over middleweights, he’s probably not going to do well at all.

Chavez Jr’s new trainer Joe Goosen has his work cut out for him in trying to get Chavez Jr to train on a regular basis and get his weight down for the Fonfara fight.

If Chavez Jr comes into the Fonfara fight in as bad shape as he was for his controversial decision win over Brian Vera in their first fight, it’s possible Fonfara will beat him. Of course, we could also see Chavez Jr given a controversial decision win like he was against Vera, Matt Vanda and Carlos Molina.