By Jason Kim: For some reason, Bob Arum has made up his mind that he wants to throw unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) in with WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (3502, 28 KO’s) in a title bout on December 4th at Madison Square Garden, in New York.
While the 24-year-old Chavez’s trainer Freddie Roach has been talking about how he really thinks Chavez can beat Cotto, I’m not in the least convinced that he in fact can. Forgetting all those easy setup fights that Chavez Jr. has been in during his seven year pro career, I think he looked to be a level below Cotto in his recent performance against John Duddy in June.
Sure, Chavez got the win, but he also got staggered by the light-hitting Duddy in that fight and was hit like clockwork by Duddy throughout the 12 round fight on June 26th. Based on what I saw of Chavez, he looked like a good B level fighter going up against another B level guy.
But rather than easing Chavez into the top tier gradually, which is what Arum probably should be doing, he’s skipping all the intermediate-level top contenders and throwing him in with the very best.
I think that’s a nice recipe for a slaughter if I ever saw one. It kind of goes against the normal boxing wisdom about bringing your fighters up gradually before putting them in with the really good opposition.
The problem for Chavez Jr. is that he’s been stuck at one level for so long without any movement up that he’s wasted a lot of time. And now Arum is going to throw him in with Cotto, which I guess is because the fight will make a lot of money.
But I think Chavez is probably going to get ripped to shreds by Cotto unless Roach really is a genius and can work wonders with Chavez in a short period of time. Roach has done a good job with some of his fighters in the past, but he’s always started out with guys that were really talented.
I don’t see Chavez Jr. as a fighter that is naturally gifted enough for Roach to turn him into someone that won’t get wiped out by Cotto. If Chavez was a little lighter on his feet, then I could see him maybe running for 12 rounds to survive a beating by Cotto, but he’s not.
Chavez is a fighter that doesn’t move a lot and still tires out late in his fights. He doesn’t have much choice against Cotto. Roach is going to have to train Chavez to actually fight Cotto and then hope for the best. I think it’s a hopeless situation for Chavez Jr.
Maybe you can call it a good experience for Chavez to get destroyed by Cotto, if you want to put a positive spin on it. But I think it’s a stupid fight from Chavez’s perspective. Here they didn’t want to put Chavez in with Kelly Pavlik, and yet by putting him in with Cotto the end result will be essentially the same with Chavez getting drilled into the canvas inside the distance.
Comments are closed.