By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated junior middleweight prospect Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (34-0-1, 27 KOs) will be putting his unbeaten record on the line when he goes up against veteran Jose Celaya (31-3, 16 KOs) on Saturday night at the Domo De La Feria, Leon, in Guanajuato, Mexico. Celaya, 26, a good fighter with excellent amateur credentials – unlike Chavez Jr., whom has none – appears to be the latest of the sacrificial lambs brought in for the slaughter for the 21 year-old Chavez to look good against in the process of beating.
To be sure, this is a gimme fight for Chavez, for Celaya, a fighter with good handspeed and counter punching ability, has a major flaw in his armor – a weak chin. That’s the only weakness that the young Chavez will need, because if anything that he has going for him, which I personally consider not too much, he can certainly punch with decent power. Up to this point, Celaya has fought mostly 3rd tier fighters, few of which most people would consider good fighters. However, in the two occasions that Celaya has stepped it up against a 2nd tier fighter – James Webb and Eduarto Sanchez – he was knocked out.
Just so you know, neither Webb or Sanchez are top notch fighters, both losing badly when facing bottom 15 fighters. This would indicate that Celaya, unless he can show something different, he’ll be yet another knockout victim of Chavez. However, Celaya definitely has the skills to beat Chavez, for we saw in his last bout, a six-round TKO over Ray Sanchez in December 2007, Chavez doesn’t throw a lot of punches. His handspeed isn’t particularly impressive either, which hasn’t been a liability as of yet due to the mostly marginal fighters that Chavez has fought up to this point in his early career.
When attacking his opponent, Chavez generally comes right at them in a straight line, showing no ability to move side to side with lateral movement. In a word, Chavez is a plodder. He blocks few, if any punches, and never seems to move his head to avoid incoming punches. This, of course, will be a problem when Chavez steps it up against a good B-level fighter.
It’s unclear, however, whether Celaya will have a good enough chin to land enough to take advantage of Chavez’s numerous flaws. Certainly, minus a knockout on his part, Celaya has little chance of beating Chavez – the big name fighter – by a decision. This will be a problem, because Celaya isn’t much of a puncher, and will have to hope that he can somehow pull out a decision. Chavez, for his part, though unbeaten technically, really should have a loss on his record in my view.
He took a beating against Carlos Molina in December 2005, and it didn’t seem remotely close to being a draw. Though Chavez would turn around and fight Molina again, beating him by a majority decision in February 2006, I saw this fight as a draw. Chavez had shown almost zero improvement, as he took a ferocious punishment from Molina, especially in terms of head shots.
Should Chavez get by Celaya, expect him to be continued to be matched up with fighters with weak chins, and mostly average skills. In my book, Chavez doesn’t have the talent to compete with the top echelon fighters, and would lose badly. There had been talk of him fighting Alfonso Gomez, the star from The Contender reality television series on ESPN, but that seemed to have went by the way side after Chavez’ poor showing against Sanchez in his most recent bout.