By Chris Williams: Bob Arum has done a good job in having his fighter WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s) side step an almost certain knockout loss in a fight with Sergio Martinez to instead face #1 ranked WBC contender Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) on February 4h at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Arum is making this out to be a really exciting and competitive fight, but don’t buy into it. This is another example of his fighter Chavez Jr. facing a hand-picked opponent in Rubio. I know a lot of boxing fans think this is going to be a pick em fight but they’re dead wrong. Rubio was little more than a punching bag in his fights against Kelly Pavlik and David Lemieux.
Rubio took terrible one-sided punishment in both fights to an enormous degree. The punishment alone in the Lemieux fight would have a lot of referees stepping and halting the fight because Rubio was just getting pounding for the five rounds of that fight. The only reason Rubio was able to come back and win was because Lemieux completely gassed out in the 6th and was backpedaling from then on until his corner stopped the fight in the 7th.
Rubio looked absolutely horrible, like a 40-year-old moving around the ring just taking shots. When Lemieux stopped punching then Rubio was able to stop covering up and come forward to hit Lemieux at will with jabs, body shots and right hands, but isn’t impressive stuff from Rubio. The guy lacks hand speed in a big way, and his power is completely overrated. He’s not a huge puncher.
He’s got knockouts but look at his record. Most of those KOs have come against 2nd tier opposition. If you put a lot of fighters in with the same guys that Rubio has fought, they’d have same record if not better. He’s fought a lot of poor opponents to pile up all those knockouts. He’s got heavy hands but he’s not a big puncher and he’s painfully slow. Chavez Jr. will have a big size advantage over Rubio in addition to a hand speed and power advantage as well.
I can see Chavez Jr. blitzing Rubio and blowing him out in the 1st or 2nd round because Rubio goes the ropes and just covers up and lets his opponents tee off. He still gets hit cleanly with right hands and left hooks while he’s on the ropes and is just a punching bag. Rubio has no defense for a right hand; none. In both the Pavlik and Lemieux fight, Rubio was hit with right hand leads all night and he never came close to blocking any because he’s so slow.
This is not going to be a competitive fight, believe me. Arum has selected a hyped fighter in Rubio but the guy isn’t what people think he is. He got a name because of the Lemieux fight and if you watch that fight again, Rubio looked horrible. He won’t last against a fighter like Chavez Jr. and I don’t think Chavez Jr. is anywhere near as good as Martinez, but he’s better than Rubio that’s for sure.
Rubio won’t be able to do what he did against Lemieux in the Chavez Jr. fight because Chavez Jr. won’t tire out and will just keep punching away at Rubio until the referee stops the mismatch or he quits on his stool. I don’t know if Chavez Jr. will knock him down but if he beats Rubio continuously for 8 rounds, the fight wll be stopped. Rubio is really just a punching bag against good fighters because of his lack of hand speed and huge power. He’s just a slow, medium sized middleweight with heavy hands.
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