By Dan Ambrose: In appraising the progress that WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has made in the past year under the watchful eye of trainer Freddie Roach, I think Chavez’s promoter Bob Arum needs to wait a lot longer than the end of the year before he finally matched Chavez Jr. against the middleweight division’s best fighter Sergio Martinez.

I don’t care how gargantuan Chavez Jr. comes into a fight against Martinez after he bloats up after rehydrating, Chavez Jr. will get knocked silly by Martinez. It won’t even be a fight. Martinez is so much better than what I saw of Chavez Jr. in his fight against Marco Antonio Rubio last Saturday night, and there’s just nothing he can do to make himself competitive with Sergio.

Roach was reportedly very pleased with how Chavez Jr. performed against Rubio, but he shouldn’t be. Chavez Jr. looked terrible, just a big fighter who can’t punch and just wins on size alone. He’s not the Klitschkos. They can actually fight and punch well.

Chavez Jr. fights like a novice and lacks punching power. Roach and Arum need to keep steering Chavez Jr. away from Martinez for a lot longer than this year. I’m thinking maybe for the remainder of Martinez’s career. I don’t know how the WBC can keep Chavez Jr. from having to defend his title eventually against Martinez, but I think they can if they want to. At some point, Chavez Jr. is going to have to fight Martinez and that’s when it all ends.

Chavez Jr. will be knocked out and will look terrible. The only way I can this fight not happening is if Chavez Jr. can’t continue to make weight like he’s been doing. I don’t know how he’s been doing it because I just don’t ever hear about fighters rehydrating up 20+ pounds every fight the way that Chavez Jr. has been doing. Eventually, he’s going to fail at making the weight and will lose his title on the scales. Martinez will swoop in and pick it up and that’ll change things for Chavez Jr. big time.