Chavez-Manfredo Jr: An easy defense for Julio?

By Boxing News - 09/13/2011 - Comments

Image: Chavez-Manfredo Jr: An easy defense for Julio?By Eric Thomas: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (43-0-1, 30 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his middleweight title against Peter Manfredo Jr. (37-6, 20 KO’s) on November 19th at the Reliant Arena in Houston, Texas. If Chavez Jr. is any good, he should be able to wipe the number #5 ranked WBC contender Manfredo Jr. out fairly easily without too many problems.

Manfredo has been given a very high ranking by the WBC that seems to go beyond reason. Manfredo Jr. hasn’t done anything in the past three years that would suggest that he deserves to be ranked that high other than beating B level fighters over and over again. He was beaten by Jeff Lacy 2007, and stopped by Sakio Bika in a 3rd round knockout in November 2008. Since then, it’s been pretty much all 2nd tier opposition for Manfredo Jr. But Chavez Jr. hasn’t faced much better other than his recent 12 round decision win over Sebastian Zbik last June to win the WBC title.

Chavez Jr. looked huge in that fight and came in at 180 lbs after re-hydrating from the weigh-in a day earlier. Chavez Jr. was planning on slipping in a stay busy fight with Ronald Hearns recently, but Chavez reportedly injured his right hand on a ceiling fan when he stuck his hand up in the air and it was nicked. There was talk that Chavez Jr. was heavy and wouldn’t have been able to make weight for the Hearns fight. We may see Chavez Jr. struggle to make weight for the Manfredo Jr. fight as well, because he seems to be too big for the 160 pound division.

His promoters obviously want to try and keep Chavez Jr. at 160 for as long as possible because that’s where he stands the most chance of being competitive. If he moves up in weight to 168 or 175, Chavez Jr. will be facing taller fighters that can really fight like Andre Ward, Lucian Bute and Carl Froch. That may be the end of Chavez’s title winning days because there isn’t anyone weak enough for Chavez Jr. to beat at least on paper.



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