(Photo credit: Alma Montiel) By Dan Ambrose: It burns WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (44-0-1, 31 KO’s) that challenger Marco Antonio Rubio (53-5-1, 46 KO’s) doesn’t see him as a legitimate champion and who is predicting an early 6th round TKO this Saturday night in their fight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

Chavez Jr. told ESPN writer Dan Rafael “He keeps saying he will knock me out in six rounds, and I don’t think he’s giving me the respect that I deserve.”

You can’t blame Rubio for not having a great deal of respect for Chavez Jr. because he hasn’t done the things correctly to earn that respect from him and from boxing fans unfortunately. The one that thing Chavez Jr. could have done to earn respect would have been to fight Sergio Martinez, but he’s dodged that fighter and is dodging him by fighting Rubio.

Chavez Jr. was ordered by the WBC to fight Martinez next but then asked the WBC for permission to bypass that fight to face Rubio. It was though that Chavez Jr. would then fight Martinez after the Rubio fight. However, now Martinez isn’t even being mentioned as the next opponent; Antonio Margarito and/or Miguel Cotto is. That’s pretty disappointing because it makes Chavez Jr. look like he’s ducking Martinez, and who can respect that?

Chavez Jr. wants to be respected by why should Rubio respect him when he doesn’t take the one fight that would earn him that respect. It isn’t just Chavez Jr. not facing Rubio. Chavez Jr. also hasn’t faced any of the other really good middleweights like Dmitriy Pirog, Matthew Macklin, Martin Murray, Andy Lee and Darren Barker. He’s not facing these guys and instead is taking on fighters like Peter Manfredo Jr. and Sebastian Zbik.

Chavez Jr. didn’t look good in beating Zbik. He took a lot of clean head shots in that fight and seemed to only win it based on his huge 20 pound weight advantage in that fight. He weighed in at 185 the night of the fight, and looked like a small cruiserweight facing a middleweight. It wasn’t a pretty fight, and mainly proved that Chavez Jr. can run over a small middleweight.

Chavez Jr. further said to ESPN “It’s important to me to show I am the top 160 [pound fighter] in the world, and I know that I have to fight these types of guys and beat them.”

Chavez Jr. is kidding himself if he thinks he’s the top middleweight in the division. He needs to be tested against the following fighters before he can stake that claim:

• Sergio Martinez
• Dmitriy Pirog
• Gennady Golovkin
• Felix Sturm

I’m not holding my breath waiting for Chavez Jr. to fight any of them. He obviously won’t be and will continue to be seen as a paper champion even if he does beat Rubio on Saturday night. Rubio is a decent fighter but he looked flat out awful in his loss to Kelly Pavlik in 2009, and looked almost as awful through much of his fight with David Lemieux last year. Rubio won that fight by a 7th round TKO last April.