Chavez Jr: I’ll fight whoever my promoter tells me to; Margarito likely next opponent

By Boxing News - 02/05/2012 - Comments

Image: Chavez Jr: I'll fight whoever my promoter tells me to; Margarito likely next opponentBy Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (45-0-1, 31 KO’s) had his usual excuse about why he couldn’t fight Sergio Martinez next after Chavez Jr’s 12 round unanimous decision win over Marco Antonio Rubio on Saturday night, saying according to Dan Rafael “If my promoter says go, let’s go…Whatever my promoter wants, whoever they put in front of me, I will fight.”

That’s the usual excuse Chavez Jr. makes when he’s asked to fight Sergio Martinez, and it sounds like a cop out by giving up his own part in making fights and letting his promoter, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum, be the guy that is responsible entirely with who Chavez Jr. fights. Arum is clearly the one handpicking guys like the smallish 31-year-old Rubio instead of Martinez. However, if Chavez Jr. stood up and spoke his mind, Arum would have to listen to him and follow his instructions. After all, Chavez Jr. is the one doing the fighting. But it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want the Martinez fight and I guess it’s probably a wise decision in watching Chavez Jr. last night against Rubio. He looked very beatable in winning by the scores of 118-110, 116-112 and 115-113. Chavez Jr. was hit a lot and seemed to get tired in the last half of the fight. Chavez Jr. did come on in the 11th and 12th, but he didn’t look nearly as good as some of the better fighters in the middleweight division like Martinez.

Chavez Jr. had a 10 pound weight advantage over Rubio last night, weighing 181 on the night of the fight, which is a considerable amount of weight for a middleweight to be fighting at. Chavez Jr. used this weight to bully and control the action by getting inside on Rubio and doing a lot of bumping and pushing him with his body.

Chavez Jr. will likely now fight Antonio Margarito next, according to Rafael. I’m not sure how the WBC will allow Chavez Jr. to fight a junior middleweight like Margarito but they obviously will. The fight will obviously make Chavez Jr. a lot of money because Mexican fans will eat it up, thinking that Margarito had a chance here. He doesn’t. Mentally he does but physically his right eye will likely close up and force a stoppage unless they can have the fight take place in a venue where a doctor isn’t likely to step in and halt the fight. Even with both eyes working for him, Margarito would have problems with Chavez’s size. He’d be out-weighed by close to 20 pounds and that would be enough right there for him to lose badly. It’s just too bad Chavez Jr. is fighting beatable guys like Peterson Manfredo Jr. and Rubio instead of the better middleweights in the division and there’s no end in sight. Chavez Jr. intends on staying at middleweight for a long time to come, and he feels can keep making the weight. It wouldn’t be so bad if he would at least fight Martinez or one of the other top middleweights like Gennady Golovkin or Dmitriy Pirog.



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