By Manuel Perez: In the news, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., the son of boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez, wants a fight with undefeated middleweight contender John Duddy (26-0, 17 KOs) in his next fight after Julio finishes up with his opponent for Saturday night Luciano Leonel Cuello (23-0, 10 KOs). Between the three of them, there’s a lot of inflated records with very little substance. However, Duddy, 29, appears to be a level above what I’ve seen of Chavez Jr. (38-0, 29 KOs) in the past couple of years, even if Julio has a slightly better record than Duddy.
Chavez Jr. will be going up against Cuello this Saturday night at the Plaza de Toros, in Tijuana, Mexico, and will be fighting for the vacant WBO Latino light middleweight title. Chavez Jr. figures to be the winner of this fight, but given his struggles in the past with Carlos Molina, whom he fought to a controversial six-round draw in 2005 and journeyman Matt Vanda, who Chavez Jr. beat by an equally controversial 10-round split decision In July 2008, there’s no telling what will happen against Cuello.
If Chavez Jr. can get by Cuello on Saturday night, Duddy would seem like an excellent choice as an opponent for Chavez Jr. Ranked #3 in the WBC light middleweight division, I wouldn’t recommend Chavez Jr. fighting either Vernon Forrest and Sergio Martinez, the two WBC champions.
Either of those fighters would equal to a loss for Chavez Jr., and would take away his unbeaten record and along with it he’d probably see a drop off in his paydays due to his record becoming tarnished with a loss.
It might not matter, though, because judging by all the boos that Chavez Jr. received in his first fight with Vanda, the Mexican public probably don’t see him as championship material as of yet. That could change in the future as Chavez Jr. ages. Right now, he’s only 23-years-old and has been deliberately matched soft because of his lack of an amateur career. He often looks poor, showing a limited work rate, slow hand speed, poor defense and bad footwork.
However, even in looking bad much of them time, you can see glimpses of talent, particularly when he’s letting his hands go with big power punches to the head and body. In times like these, he looks like a chip off the old block, looking like his famous father.
Unfortunately, Chavez Jr. often isn’t able to keep up with his work rate and ends up putting out an uneven performance much of the time. If Chavez Jr. is at all serious about wanting to fight Duddy, he’s Chavez Jr. is going to have to be much more consistent with his offense, and show better boxing ability to deal with being attacked hard. If they were to fight today, I see Duddy knocking Chavez Jr. out without too many problems. That’s not to say that Duddy is all that good, because I see his record as being just padded as Chavez Jr., but it’s more of a reflection of how raw Julio is as a fighter.
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