By Dan Ambrose: 30-year-old former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32 Kos) says he’s close to announcing his next fight against WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (20-1-1, 12 KOs) within the next few days. Chavez Jr. will be facing Badou in April sometime.
Chavez Jr. is coming off of a 10 round decision over Marcos Reyes in his last fight in July of 2015. Chavez Jr. has lost two out of his last five fights, and arguably doesn’t deserve to be fighting for a world title right now. Chavez Jr. was stopped in the 9th round by Andrzej Fonfara last year in April. His only wins in the last three years have come against journeyman Brian Vera and Marcos Reyes.
Chavez Jr. is training with Robert Garcia in getting ready for the Badou fight. Chavez Jr. has taken off a lot of weight since he started getting ready for the fight, and he’s likely to be in good shape by the time he faces Badou in April.
“They are still negotiating; it seems things are going well. Perhaps in the next few days they will confirm the fight,” Chavez Jr. said to ESPN Deportes. “They tell me they are missing a few details but it seems they are close, but there is nothing official so far and I do not want to look too far ahead.”
This is going to be a hard for Chavez Jr. because he’s not looked good in many years in the ring. The last really high quality effort from Chavez Jr. was his win over Marco Antonio Rubio four years ago in February 2012.
Even in that fight, Chavez Jr. was forced to go the full 12 rounds, and he ended up with a lot of bruising and swelling around the face.
Chavez Jr. suffered a fractured left hand in his win over Marcos Reyes last year. The injury required surgery and a lengthy amount of time to rehab the injury.
The winner of the Badou Jack vs. Chavez Jr. fight will need to defend the WBC title against the winner of the April 2nd WBC 168lb eliminator bout between #1 WBC Callum Smith and #6 WBC Hadillah Mohoumadi.
“He [Chavez Jr] is already in camp,” Garcia said to fighthype.com. “He’s already training. He’s in a house in Big Bear where there’s nothing to do, and he only eats what the cook feeds him. So that’s going to be a big advantage there. The plan is to be up in Big Bear and lose as much weight as he can for the first three to four weeks. Remember, the fight won’t be until the end of April, so we got a good three months.”
Trainer Robert Garcia seems to be helping Chavez Jr. take-off weight well. However, it’s going to be a much more difficult process for Chavez Jr. to defeat Badou to win his WBC title. Badou throws more punches, and he has decent enough punching power. Chavez Jr. is there to be hit and I can’t see him getting out of the way of the shots that Badou throws at him.
Wishing a happy 30th birthday to @jcchavezjr1!
Who would you like to see him face next? #Boxing pic.twitter.com/PQpTYk7IR7
— SHOWTIME SPORTS (@SHOsports) February 16, 2016
Hopefully, Chavez Jr. doesn’t wind up quitting in this fight like he did against Fonfara.
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