By Dan Ambrose: Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda – WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. beat the fighter that his promotional company put in front of him last night in a 5th round TKO of Peter Manfredo Jr. in Houston, Texas. It was a so-so win for Chavez Jr. He finished strong but looked very average though most of the fight, certainly not good enough to beat the best fighters in the middleweight division like Sergio Martinez, Andy Lee, Peter Quillin, Dmitriy Pirog, Gennady Golovkin, or Felix Sturm, to name just a small handful of guys that look better than Chavez Jr.
However, Chavez Jr. has to fight someone good in his next fight. He can’t dine on another soft opponent like he’s been fighting.
Here’s the list of guys that his promoter will be picking from for Chavez’s next fight:
Saul Alvarez: This is the fight that Bob Arum wants for Chavez Jr. because there’s downside in this fight. Even if Chavez Jr. gets wiped out, it will still bring big money for all those involved.
Sergio Martinez: If you were to pick out the least likely opponent for Chavez Jr. in his next fight it would be this guy. Martinez is much too good for Chavez Jr. and there’s no way Arum will allow this fight to be made now or anytime soon unless Martinez suddenly becomes 100% shot.
Marco Antonio Rubio: This guy has got too much power, experience, skills and composure for Arum to risk putting Chavez Jr. in with him. We just saw Rubio beat a better fighter than Chavez Jr. in David Lemieux, who punches a lot harder than Chavez Jr. Arum won’t let Chavez Jr. tangle with this guy. Rubio can really punch and retains his power late in his fights without gassing out like a lot of fighters.
Andy Lee: Chavez Jr. would have a lot of problems with Lee, in particular with his southpaw stance, hand speed and power. Lee is just a much better fighter than Chavez Jr. can ever hope to be. It would be brutal early on, as Lee would be unloading everything but the kitchen sink on Chavez Jr. And later in the fight, after Chavez Jr. start to fade like he always does, Lee would be teeing off at will. No way does Lee get picked out for Chavez Jr’s next fight.
I doubt any of these guys will get selected by Arum to fight Chavez Jr. next. I know Arum badly wants the 21-year-old Alvarez next, but that fight won’t get made because of the problems with trying to find the correct weight, purse split, ring size and other matters. Chavez Jr. out-weighs Alvarez by a lot of weight, and that’s going to make it hard to put this fight together.
If I were to guess who will likely end up facing Chavez Jr. next it’ll probably be from this bunch of fighters:
Darren Barker
Domenico Spada
Koji Sato
Michael Oliveira
Grzegorz Proksa
Nobuhiro Ishida
By picking from this group, it will be in keeping with the B level quality that Chavez Jr. has been exclusively matched against his entire career. This will thus allow him to keep his unbeaten record intact and keep the gravy train flowing.
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