Chavez Jr. to fight in June or July, wants Macklin or Martin Murray

By Boxing News - 04/27/2015 - Comments

chavez524By Dan Ambrose: After having quit on his stool in his last fight against light heavyweight Andrzej Fonfara on April 18th of this month, former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (48-2-1, 32 KOs) says he wants to return to the ring in two to three months to fight the likes of Martin Murray or Matthew Macklin.

Chavez Jr, 29, thinks that either of those guys would be good opponents for him. If Chavez Jr. fights either of those guys, he’d be reverting back to fight smaller middleweights again like he’s been doing for the past few years. Chavez Jr. moved up in weight to super middleweight because he could no longer melt down to 160 to fight in the middleweight division. But since moving up to 168, Chavez Jr. has twice fought middleweight journeyman Brian Vera, who he’s dragged up in weight to light heavyweight and super middleweight.

“I’d like to come back as soon as possible. I don’t know if at the end of June or in July,” Chavez Jr. said via ESPN Deportes. “I want to have a fight at 168 pounds. I want to resume my career, get in rhythm and look the best for me. Already the defeat with Fonfara, I left it behind, took the best that I could and stayed as a bad experience.”

Moving back down to 168 is a must for Chavez Jr. but even then it doesn’t promise to bring him any more success than what we saw from him in getting stopped by Fonfara earlier this month. It certainly doesn’t make any sense for Chavez Jr. to be fighting middleweights like Murray or Macklin, even though Murray is kind of big for a middleweight. If Chavez Jr. is going to be fighting at super middleweight, then he needs to be fighting guys from that weight class rather than dragging up middleweights to fight. Chavez Jr. likely wouldn’t have too much of a weight advantage over Martin Murray if he were to fight him because Murray tends to put on a lot of weight after he weighs in, but a fight against Macklin makes no sense at all.

“There are Macklin or Murray, two fighters who, like me, have been at 160 pounds, are two good rivals that would have a better chance than I had with Fonfara,” Chavez Jr. said. “I am already started training. I think that these two defeats is not going to stop. We will find new challenges and new goals in my weight.”

Chavez Jr’s adviser is Al Haymon will likely be the one who does the picking for his next fight. Haymon is very good at selecting opposition for his opponents so he’s probably pick out a guy that he feels that Chavez Jr. has a good chance of beating. Macklin would be a good choice.

Murray might be a little too tough for Chavez Jr, and I doubt that Haymon will pick him out. Murray looks good against limited fighters, and he might be able to out-box Chavez Jr. The problem that Chavez Jr. has is that he’s likely going to struggle once he starts better opposition.

It would be good if Haymon could get Chavez Jr. a title shot at newly crowned WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack. He has the high pressure style that Chavez Jr. might do well against. Jack likes to fight on the inside, but he’s not as good as Chavez Jr. in that department. It’s quite possible Chavez Jr. could beat Jack and maybe hold onto the WBC title for a short while.



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