By Dan Ambrose: After a less than scintillating performance in beating little known middleweight Marcos Reyes (33-3, 24 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision last Saturday night on Showtime, former WBC 160lb champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32 KOs) is looking to pick his next opponent. Chavez Jr., 29, is interested in facing former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (31-2, 24 KOs) next.
Before he can take that fight, or any other fight, Chavez Jr. will need to wait until his left hand heals up. He says he suffered a hairline fracture of his left hand in beating Reyes. The good news is the injury should only take three weeks to heal before Chavez Jr. can resume training.
“I need to be active. When I don’t fight is when I have more problems,” Chavez Jr. said via ESPN Deportes. So we think that I can go back in October. We talked about a couple of names, among them being Lucien Bute, but first I have to be okay with my hand and not give advantage.”
Bute, 35, has a fight scheduled next month against Andrea Di Luisa (17-2, 13 KOs) in a 10 round bout on August 15th at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Like Chavez Jr., Bute is signed with adviser Al Haymon, which should make things a little easier for Chavez Jr. to get the fight with him. It’s potentially a really tough fight for Chavez Jr. because Bute has some skills and excellent punching power.
Bute is a lot faster than Chavez Jr., and he can punch when he loads up on his shots. Bute doesn’t have the kind of punching power that Andrzej Fonfara possesses, but he’s got more than enough power to hurt Chavez Jr. and make him quit like Fonfara did.
Chavez Jr. ran out of gas after the 7th round in his fight against Reyes last Saturday. If Chavez Jr. fades in a similar way against Bute, he’ll take a vicious beating and may even get stopped.
Bute has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights in the last three years since 2012, and he hasn’t fought since last year in January 2014 in losing to Jean Pascal. Part of the problem that Bute has had is injury issues. If he could make it through a training camp without suffering a serious injury, it be an interesting fight between him and Chavez Jr. However, a lot of boxing fans see Bute as a shot fighter and just an old name from the past that no longer has it.
Bute is currently ranked #6 by the WBC. If Chavez Jr., #5 WBC, can beat him, it’ll push Chavez Jr. up the rankings and get him closer to getting a world title shot against WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack.
“I went to the doctor on Monday, and took my x-rays,” Chavez Jr. said. “He discovered a crack in the knuckle. He says me there is no worry. You have to wait to wait for the inflammation to go down and in three weeks and then can start with the activity.”
Chavez Jr. needs to make up his mind what weight class he wants to fight in. He came in overweight for his fight against Reyes by weighing in at 170lbs. After Chavez Jr. rehydrated in the 24 hours after the weigh-in, he looked like he weighed in the neighborhood of 190. If Chavez Jr. is going to be weighing that much for his fights in the 168lb division, he likely won’t do very well because he’s too slow and sluggish.
Chavez Jr. might be better off moving up to light heavyweight (175) to fight against guys his own size. If it’s killing him to make even 168, then that’s a pretty good sign that he needs to move up to 175. But if Chavez Jr. is ballooning to the 190s, he might need to move up to cruiserweight because that might actually be his best weight class for him.
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