By Jason Kim: Unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) is taking the backdoor into the WBC title by taking on interim World Boxing Council middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik (30-0, 10 KO’s) for a bout that will reportedly be taking place in May after Chavez Jr. gets by his scheduled 10 round bout on January 29th against former fringe contender Billy Lyell (22-8, 4 KO’s) at the Estadio Banorte, Culiacan, Mexico.
Lyell, 26, was previously ranked in the junior middleweight division near the bottom but after getting spanked by IBF middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester in a 10th round TKO loss a year ago on January 30th in 2010, Lyell has kind of dropped off the map in the junior middleweight division. So this looks like Chavez Jr. is facing another second tier opponent and another smaller fighter than him from a division below.
If Chavez Jr. beats Lyell, he will then go ahead and look to fight Zbik in May for the WBC interim title. Zbik has no power and it would be a fight with him trying to fend Chavez Jr. off with jabs for the most part. Depending where the fight takes place, Chavez Jr. could win and be in a good position to eventually fight for the full WBC title once Martinez is appointed as the Super WBC champion, which means the WBC full title would be open for Chavez Jr. to fight for against unbeaten Canadian knockout artist David Lemieux.
I wouldn’t like Chavez’s chances against Lemieux, not with the power that Lemieux has in his shots. However, Chavez’s trainer Freddie Roach would likely have Chavez adopting the same running and grabbing style that Roach’s fighter WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan used against Marcos Maidana. If Chavez’s wheels could work long enough to keep him from getting stretched, he would have a chance of winning a decision by jabbing his way to victory over Lemieux. It’s not the way I would like to see Chavez winning a champion, because it seems silly that Martinez would be turned into a Super champion just to clear the way for Chavez to move into the WBC title. That seems wrong. Martinez would destroy Chavez no matter what scheme Roach dreamed up and that’s the fight Chavez should be taking and not facing guys like Zbik and Lemieux in a backdoor way to the title.
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