By Dan Ambrose: The many years of careful match-making in which Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) has been guided through a sea of almost exclusively B and C level fighters will be put to a test this Saturday night on June 4th against WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik (30-0, 10 KO’s) at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. Chavez Jr. has to win this fight in order to get to the important cash out fight against Miguel Cotto in September.

That fight will be Chavez Jr’s big pay off where he gets the nice payday after years of building a record. If Chavez Jr. fails in this fight, he won’t get the big Cotto fight and it will likely set Chavez Jr. back in a big way. He needs this fight to get the payday. The thing is Zbik is the best pure boxers that Chavez Jr. has ever faced in his career and this could be big problem for him.

Chavez Jr. has been matched mostly with moderately-powered fighters that either stood right in front of him or moved just a little but enough to give Chavez Jr. any problems. Zbik is very similar to WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm in that he has a great jab and superb boxing skills. Zbik may not have big power, but he’s got good enough skills to expose Chavez Jr’s many flaws.

Chavez is a slugger but without a slugger’s power. He’s got decent but not great power and has to stand in front of a willing opponent for a long period of time for him to get a knockout. Chavez won’t be able to take Zbik out because he’s not the type that will stand and allow Chavez Jr. to plant himself in front of him all night to last his shots. For this reason, it could be a fight where we may finally see Chavez Jr. beaten.