By Jason Kim: A fight between WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (43-0-1, 30 KO’s) and WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (38-0-1, 28 KO’s) is reportedly being planned by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum for March 2012 at a catchweight of 158 lbs.
It’s really a good idea that the fight get made sooner rather than later because of how vulnerable these two fighters are. Once they get beat, which will likely happen very soon, the mystique about them will drop off dramatically. It’s likely this is why Arum and Alvarez’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions are interested in making this match.
Chavez Jr. didn’t look at all good in winning the World Boxing Council middleweight title against paper champion Sebastian Zbik last June. Indeed, Chavez Jr. hasn’t looked good since he beat John Duddy last year in June, and even in that fight, Chavez Jr. was staggered. Chavez has a title defense coming up against Peter Manfredo Jr. (37-6, 20 KO’s) on November 19th, and if Chavez Jr. can get by that opponent, he should be good to go for a fight against Alvarez. However, there’s really no guarantee Chavez Jr. can even win that fight, because he’s really, really flawed in terms of skills and his trainer Freddie Roach can only do so much with the limited talent that Chavez Jr. possesses. Roach does a lot better when he’s given great fighters right off the bat rather than guys that lack hand speed, big power and have weight problems like Chavez. But if Chavez Jr. can get by Manfredo Jr. and look completely terrible, then a fight against Alvarez is a possibility next year.
Alvarez, 5’9″, hasn’t looked great either in his last four fights against Lovemore N’dou, Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes and Alfonso Gomez. He last the first three rounds against Gomez on September 17th, but turned on his offense from the 4th round on to finally get a stoppage in the 6th.
However, Alvarez fights with far too much patience and doesn’t really go after his opponents unless he’s got them hurt. He will have big problems when he’s forced to fight contenders Alfredo Angulo and Vanes Martirosyan. I suspect he’ll lose to Angulo, and might get beaten by Martirosyan as well. For this reason, it’s wise for Golden Boy to get him in with Chavez Jr. as soon as possible to get him a big payday before he gets beaten.
The catchweight of 158 lbs really favors Chavez. The fight should take place at a halfway point before 154 and 160, at 156 instead of 158. The 158 favors Chavez Jr., who after he rehydrates after the weigh-in, could weight as much as 180 lbs like he did in his last fight against Zbik.
Alvarez typically weighs in around 160 after he rehydrates, meaning that Chavez Jr. would have a huge 20 pound weight advantage against Alvarez by the time they set foot in the ring in March. If that doesn’t matter to Golden Boy so be it, but it would bother me if I were Alvarez’s manager. Chavez Jr. really should be fighting at 168 or 176 instead of 160. Having to fight a guy that balloons up after the weigh-in to a light heavyweight-sized fighter is a bad deal.
I wouldn’t go for it, which is why I think the catchweight needs to be held at 156, and there needs to be a weight clause of how high Chavez Jr. can come in after he rehydrates. You can’t have Alvarez fighting a guy that out-weighs him by 20 pounds, even if Chavez Jr. is badly flawed.
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