By Jason Kim: On June 26th, unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) will be putting his unbeaten record on the line against John Duddy (29-1, 18 KO’s) in a 12 round fight at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas. This fight has some significance in that the two fighters are both ranked in their respective divisions and need the win to move forward for bigger money fights in the future. In the case of Chavez, this is a huge fight because he could be in line for a big money stadium fight against Miguel Cotto in the near future if everything goes right for him. Ranked #1 by the WBC junior middleweight division, Chavez Jr. is in position to get a title shots against WBC title holder Sergio Martinez.
It’s not likely that Chavez’s promoter will want to feed him to a fighter like Martinez, because Chavez would have little chance at winning the fight and would very likely get stopped and badly humiliated by Martinez if the fight were ever to take place. At the same time, a fight against Martinez isn’t the huge money fight that Chavez’s promoter is likely looking at for him. An arguably much better fight would be Chavez against Cotto if that fight can be made.
However, Chavez has to get by Duddy in June of he wants to get the big money fight against Cotto. That’s not going to be easy for Chavez, because he hasn’t shown the kinds of skills that would suggest that he can compete with a fringe middleweight contender like Duddy. John isn’t a great fighter himself, but he does seem to be a legitimate bottom 15 middleweight, which is more than I can see about Chavez.
I personally see Chavez as a 2nd tier junior middleweight, even though he’s currently ranked number #1 by the WBC for some odd reason. I still don’t know how or why the WBC has Chavez ranked so high because he’s fought no one and looked mostly poor in the last couple of years against the B level fighters that have been matched against him. But he doesn’t have his father’s name, so that could help a little.
Unless I miss my guess, Chavez’s trainer Freddie Roach is going to have him loading up with his shots in hopes of hurting Duddy. The Irish middleweight is susceptible to getting hurt and cut in his fights. I think Roach is going to have Chavez loading up with his shots to try and put Duddy in trouble.
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