By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32 KOs) will be fighting next month against #11 WBO Dominik Britsch (32-2-1, 11 KOs) in a 10 round fight on December 10 at the Arena Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, according to Fight News.
Chavez Jr. hasn’t fought in a year and a half since his win over middleweight Marcos Reyes. He’s been out of the ring due to injuries. When Chavez Jr. does return, there are going to be a lot of questions asked of him whether he still has the talent to be a factor in boxing.
Chavez Jr. has not looked good in a fight in the last four years since his 7th round knockout win over Andy Lee in June 2012. That was when Chavez Jr. was still the WBC 160lb champion. He’s looked slow and sluggish in his last five fights against Sergio Martinez, Brian Vera x 2, Andrzej Fonfara and Marcos Reyes.
Chavez Jr’s boxing fans will be excited about him finally getting back into the ring after nearly two years out of the ring. But even though he’s coming back, it’s debatable whether he’ll continue to fight on a regular basis. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see Chavez Jr. back inside the ring until 2018.
It’s sad how Chavez Jr. has wasted so much time with his boxing career since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012. Chavez Jr. had a lot of potential if he could have stayed at 160 and continued to use his size advantage to crush lighter fighters. Some fans see Saul Canelo Alvarez as the newer version of Chavez Jr. with the way that he’s able to dehydrate to fight at lighter weights, and use his weight advantage to crush lighter opponents.
If Chavez Jr. can find his way back down to 160, he could resume using his size to get the better of fighter fighters than himself. It would be interesting to see if Chavez Jr. could find the same kind of success that he had before. The only problem that Chavez Jr. Would have right now is he would have to deal with Gennady Golovkin, who can punch like a light heavyweight.
If Chavez Jr. loses to Britsch, then he can pretty much forget about getting any big fights. It wouldn’t be surprising news if Chavez Jr. were to get beaten by Britsch, because he looked so bad in his last two fights against Marcos Reyes and Andrzej Fonfara. He looked sluggish and slow in both of those fights. Chavez Jr. had a considerable size advantage over Reyes, and yet still looked poor in that fight.
Chavez Jr. has talked about wanting to fight middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, but that doesn’t seem too likely. Golovkin isn’t likely going to take waste his time in thinking about a fight against Chavez Jr. until he proves that he can a busy fighter that is able to find his way to the ring on a consistent basis. The way he’s fighting right now, it doesn’t look like Chavez Jr. is a full time fighter any longer. He’s not fought in 2016, and he fought only once in 2014 and 2013.
At this point, it’s debatable whether Chavez Jr. can regain the boxing skills and sharpness that he had four years ago when he became a part time boxer. Chavez Jr. is in the same boat as former super middleweight champion Andre Ward in losing a lot of his sharpness due to him being a part time fighter in the last five years of his career.
Chavez Jr’s management has chosen a beatable fighter that is no threat to him in the light hitting 29-year-old Britsch from Germany. This is a fighter that arguably shouldn’t be ranked in the top 15 by the World Boxing Organization, because he’s done zero in his career to be ranked in the top 15. Britsch has lost two out of his last right fights in defeats to Roberto Santos and Soufiene Ouerghi.
Britsch has never beaten anyone good in his 10 year pro career in Germany. He’s been facing tune-up level fighters for his entire career. He never really tried to step it up. Now he’s got a fight against Chavez Jr. on December 10, and he can play the part of a spoiler in this fight. Without punching power, Britsch has virtually no chance of winning.