By Dan Ambrose: Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) did what few boxing fans thought he could do last year when he withstood a furious early onslaught by power punching Canadian David Lemieux last April and came on to batter and stop him in the 7th round in front of Lemieux’s home fans in Montreal, Canada.

Now the 31-year-old Rubio will attempt to do the same thing with another highly hyped and inexperienced youngster in WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s) on February 4th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

Chavez Jr. likely would have never been matched against a dangerous puncher like Rubio if not for the fact that Chavez Jr. had his back to the wall and was being forced to fight an even more dangerous puncher in Sergio Martinez.

With no real direction to turn to, Chavez Jr. asked and was given permission to dodge the Martinez fight – and certain knockout loss – to take the slightly less dangerous fight in Rubio. Chavez Jr. now has a real fight on his hands next month and it’s unclear how he’ll perform under the pressure that he’s going to be receiving from Rubio.

Rubio will likely fight in a similar pattern as he did in the Lemieux fight by letting Chavez Jr. do most of the attacking to feel what he’s got and to wait him until Chavez Jr. has used up a significant amount of his fuel reserves.

If you were to pick Chavez’s biggest weakness in his game you would probably have to point to his stamina more than anything. Chavez Jr. often wears out in the later rounds of his fights and is really easy to hit during this time.

His promoter Bob Arum has done a great job of keeping him away from anyone with power or skills, so Chavez Jr. has never had to worry about taking punishment. He’s always been the bigger puncher and the bigger fighter in his bouts. He won’t be the bigger puncher against Rubio and he’s going to have to come up with some different strategy to fight him because slugging won’t work.