By Eric Thomas: Number #1 ranked WBC middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) will be facing undefeated WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik (30-0, 10 KO’s) on June 4th without a tune-up bout to get ready for the fight. Chavez Jr., the son of former boxing world champion Julio Cesar Chavez, was supposed to be taking a tune-up fight against David Medina. It looks like they decided that fight was either too risky or wouldn’t given Chavez Jr. enough time to get ready for the title shot against Zbik.

As of now, there’s still no venue for the Chavez-Zbik fight, but both Las Vegas and Mexico are being talked about. The fight will be shown on HBO regardless of where it takes place. It’s going to be a great opportunity for both fighters to show their stuff in front of a large American audience tuning in to watch it on HBO.

The fight itself will be interesting because Chavez Jr. is more of a slugger and will be facing a pure boxer in then 28-year-old Zbik. The experience probably goes to Zbik because he’s fought several decent fighters during his career with wins over Domenico Spada, Ruben Varon and Jorge Sebastian Heiland. In contrast, Chavez, 25, has only fought John Duddy and Billy Lyell, both B level fighters at best.

Perhaps the most interesting thing of all about the Zbik-Chavez Jr. fight is that neither of these guys appear to be anything close to being the best fighters in the division. Both are decent fighters, but neither of them look like top 15 fighters. The WBC has really done Chavez Jr. and Zbik a huge favor by ranking them so high and by giving Zbik the title without having to earn it in the ring against former champion Sergio Martinez, who the WBC stripped of his title recently when he chose to fight Sergiy Dzinziruk.

The winner of the Chavez vs. Zbik fight will hardly be considered a real champion in the minds of many boxing fans, because neither fighter has beaten the top guys in the division. At this point, I think even someone like Daniel Jacobs, who I really rate, would beat both Chavez Jr. and Zbik on the same night. There simply is better fighters than Chavez Jr. and Zbik, so that makes this fight seem kind of fake in my mind. I don’t see the winner of this fight being a real champion.