By Manuel Perez: Undefeated light middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (36-0-1, 29 KOs) faces his toughest test to date when he goes up against Matt Vanda (38-6, 21 KOs) in scheduled 12-round bout on July 12th, at the Palenque De La Expo, Hermosillo, in Sonora, Mexico. Chavez Jr., 22, the son of former boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez, is hoping to look good against Vanda in order to keep moving up against better opponents and eventually into a title shot in the not too distant future.

Ranked an incredible #5 in the World Boxing Council (WBC) despite not having faced any real tough opposition, Chavez Jr. so far appears not even close to being ready to face tougher opponents, much less a champion. Even now, with one of the weakest champions – Sergio Mora – to hold the WBC belt in some time, Chavez Jr. would likely be in way over his head in a match of this kind, and would very likely find himself bovinely moving around the ring, catching punches from the slick Mora, who would probably make easy work of the young Chavez Jr. At 36-0, Julio has built up a record that looks impressive at first glance, fooling those who are too lazy or incurious enough to dig down deep and find that there’s no there there.

In his best fights to date, wins over C-class Ray Sanchez, Jose Celaya and Tobia Giuseppe Loriga, Chavez Jr. has looked nothing like a future champion, as he’s struggled at times against this low quality fodder, taking a lot of shots against opponents that a good top 10 fighter would steam roll over with ease. Instead of beating them in one-sided bouts, Chavez Jr. has had to fight tooth and nail to get wins, and has taken a tremendous amount of punishment along the way. It would seem based on these fights that Chavez has been vaulted much too quickly to the top of the division, and appears far from where he needs to be to ever make a good contender.

Indeed, Chavez Jr. looks to be regressing as a fighter, slowing down as he’s gotten older, his punch output dropping with every fight he takes. At one time, he has an excellent work rate and could be expected to average 50-60 punches per round. That’s changed, however, in the past couple of years as his work rate has dropped off to the point where he’s averaging half of that, and struggling to do even that. In a effect, he’s become what is known as a pot shotter, someone what plods around looking for one big shot.

He’s been able to pull out victories in the jaws of defeat by fighting this way, though against poor fighters in every case. Vanda, a decent fighter at one time, has looked bad in his last none fights, losing five of them. I guess this is perhaps why he was selected as Chavez Jr’s opponent, for if he was on a winning streak you bet he’d get nowhere near Chavez Jr. However, a win over Vanda will prove nothing, other than showing that Chavez Jr. can beat another low level fighter. In a way, it’s prolonging the inevitable, putting it off one more fight, for when Chavez Jr. eventually takes on a good top 10 fighter, someone like Joel Julio or James Kirkland, he will lose big, likely getting flattened.

The sad thing is, they’re not the only fighter that would stomp Chavez Jr., because virtually every one of the top 10 to top 15, I think, would easily beat Chavez Jr. He doesn’t have the boxing skills, the movement, or the work rate to beat top fighters. Sure, he can beat the lower quality fighters, those that were never good in the first place or those on their last legs, but against a top level fighter, forget it, he’s going to lose. I see this fight as a testing ground for Chavez Jr., one in which if he looks good, his management will thrust him forward against one of the other young lions in the light middleweight division, although one with weak power.

I may be wrong, but it seems as if they’re hoping to hit the jackpot by getting him into one big title bout, a big-paying bout where he’ll get a significant money, and, of course, lose badly in the process. It will be a one-time shot, however, for after that he’ll lose what little glitter that he had. He’ll still have the Chavez name, but his unbeaten record will have been tarnished, and he’ll be just like any fighter. Ideally, he needs to go back to the drawing board, forget about title shots for the next 3-4 years, and try to work on all of the flaws in his game. He doesn’t belong anywhere near the top 10, in my estimation.

He’s not good enough and belongs more in the B-level, where he can continue learning slowly by beating progressively better fighters, improving little by little. After all, he never had an amateur career to speak of, and is only now learning how to fight. Of course, they’re not going to take their time with him, and you can expect him to be thrown to the wolves in the next year, pushed into a title fight where he’ll be hopelessly outclassed, taking a beating and very likely knocked out. However, he’ll get a good payday, but that’s about it.