By Chris Williams: Undefeated junior middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) will be used as one of Manny Pacquiao’s many sparring partners to help him prepare for his November 13th bout against the Mexican Antonio Margarito. Chavez Jr., who fights a lot like Margarito, is someone that Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach feels can do a good job mimicking Margarito’s style to help Pacquiao.

It should be a good experience for Chavez Jr., because he’ll get a chance to see Pacquiao working angles and using fast attacks. Who knows? Top Rank promoter Bob Arum could end up putting together a fight between Chavez Jr. and Pacquiao in the not too distant future once Pacquiao has beaten Margarito, and then beaten Miguel Cotto once again.

It’s not exactly an appealing thought to imagine Chavez Jr. vs. Pacquiao in the future, but if he is continued to be matched very carefully against guys that they know he can beat, he should be able to stay unbeaten long enough to get a big money fight against Pacquiao.

Pacquiao probably doesn’t even need the services of Chavez Jr. to beat Margarito, because Pacquiao is a lot faster than him and is at the top of his game right now. Margarito, in contrast, looks like a shell of his former self and seems to have lost a lot of his power. His workrate, which used to average 100 punches per round, has also taken a dramatic drop in his past two fights. Throwing a lot of punches is probably Margarito’s only chance at beating Pacquiao. He doesn’t have huge power, so he won’t be able to just chop Pacquiao down with one big shot. Margarito has to put his punches together and just overwhelm Pacquiao with shots. Of course, Pacquiao being so much quicker than Margarito, it will make things easy for Pacquiao if Margarito comes to fight an all out brawl.

Unless Margarito’s chin holds out, he could end up getting stopped quickly. However, if Margarito is able to revert back to his old high volume punch output style of fighting and if his chin can hold up under him, he will have a very real chance of knocking off Arum’s golden goose Pacquiao. Arum will do well anyway, even if Pacquiao loses the fight, because Arum will then put together a big money rematch where Pacquiao gets a chance to redeem himself. This is all fantasy stuff, though, because Margarito stands little chance of doing anything against Pacquiao other than getting knocked out within six rounds.

Chavez Jr. recently picked up the biggest win of his career with a 12 round unanimous decision win over fringe middleweight contender John Duddy last month in June. Roach has been ecstatic over the win, and has been crowing about it. However, Duddy, limited fighter with little power, little defense and little hand speed, was the perfect opponent for Chavez Jr. to fight. You probably won’t be seeing Chavez Jr. matched against guys like Alfredo Angulo, Sergiy Dzinziruk, Sergio Martinez or Paul Williams any time soon. Chavez Jr. will continue to be brought along slowly until he’s finally matched against either Miguel Cotto or Pacquiao. My guess is they’re saving Chavez for the Pacquiao bout in the near future and won’t be matching him tough until then.