By Eric Thomas: Sergio Martinez is waiting anxiously to find out what WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will do next. Either Chavez Jr. agrees to fight Martinez or else he gets stripped of his title by the World Boxing Council.

Martinez would much rather win the belt in the ring by beating Chavez Jr., but given Chavez’s reluctance to face him, Martinez will likely have to settle for having the title stripped from Chavez. It obviously would look a lot better for Chavez Jr. if he would take the Martinez fight because it’s going to look bad if he give up the belt without a fight.

Casual boxing fans won’t see what happens, though, and Chavez Jr. can dodge a knockout defeat. If Chavez Jr. decides not to take the Martinez fight, then Martinez will go ahead and fight on March 17th, likely against Matthew Macklin (28-3, 19 KO’s), who is coming off of a controversial 12 round decision loss to WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm last June. Macklin fought well in that fight but got outworked in the second half of the fight and got hit with a lot of hard shots from Sturm.

Chavez’s name has been linked with Miguel Cotto and Darren Barker for his next fight. Bob Arum wants to put together Chavez vs. Cotto next and hasn’t said anything about wanting to put Chavez Jr. in with Martinez. It obviously is going to come down to the WBC to whether Chavez Jr. will get stripped or not. He’s not going to fight Martinez.

Martinez is already considered the best fighter in the middleweight division even without a title, and it won’t change much if he has the WBC title in his possession. It’s just a trinket, and Chavez is a paper champion due to the way he won the belt. Chavez can avoid Martinez forever and it still won’t mean that Chavez Jr. is the real champion. It’s just for show. Anyone with knowledge about the sport knows that Martinez is the best fighter in the division.