By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s second title defense against challenger Marco Antonio Rubio is only two weeks away for their February 4th fight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

In looking at recent training photos of the 25-year-old Chavez Jr. at fightnews.com, he looks to be at least 180lbs in those photos. No way is Chavez Jr. anywhere close to weighing 160lbs. He looks like a huge light heavyweight (175) and it’s going to be interesting to see how he can make the weight.

Obviously, Chavez Jr. isn’t going to lose any more weight and will simply dehydrate on the Friday before the fight to get down to the 160 pound limit to make the weight, but he could end up weakened in the fight.

If Chavez Jr. isn’t messed up from taking off all that weight, he’s going to likely have a good 15 pounds on the 3-year-old Rubio. Chavez Jr. weighed 180lbs the night of his fight against WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik last year and was able to win a grueling 12 round decision.

I can see Chavez Jr. coming in once again at that weight, as he’s simply outgrown the middleweight division and it looks they’re working hard to try and keep Chavez Jr. at that weight. The reason why it’s important for Chavez Jr, to stay at 160 is because he has a big advantage over his opponents if he can come in weighing a lot more than them.

It certainly goes a long ways towards making up for his lack of talent in the skills part of his game. But once Chavez Jr. can no longer make 160lbs, he’s going to be in for a world of hurt because there isn’t any weak links for him to exploit to pick up a paper title at super middleweight (168lbs), and he could end up being forced to skip that division altogether and try pick up a title at light heavyweight (175 lbs).

At that weight, Chavez Jr. would have no advantages because all the champions are roughly his size and much more skilled. Bernard Hopkins would beat him badly, as would Beibut Shumenov and Nathan Cleverly. Bob Arum, Chavez’s promoter, might have to work some magic him to pick up a paper title somehow or one of the interim straps. Perhaps one of the sanctioning bodies could pull a strip job of one the champions and Chavez Jr. could move in and pick it up and dodge the most dangerous contender for one or two years.