By Jason Kim: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. beat Marco Antonio Rubio by a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night in the young 25-year-old Chavez Jr’s 2nd title defense of his World Boxing Council belt. Unfortunately, the win wasn’t impressive enough for Chavez Jr. to be pushed up in the Ring’s ratings.

Chavez Jr. is still stuck at No.5 behind Ring champion Sergio Martinez, #1 Daniel Geale, #2 Felix Sturm and #3 Matthew Macklin, #4 Grzegorz Proksa. I suppose Chavez Jr. should consider himself lucky not to be ranked behind guys like Dmitry Pirog and Gennady Golovkin, who I feel are better middleweights than Chavez Jr. by a long shot.

In looking at Chavez’s performance against Rubio, it’s kind of easy to pick out what hurt him in that performance. First of all, Chavez Jr. fought in a rather odd manner by getting in close with Rubio and leaning forward like an oversized lightweight with very little power and hand speed.

Chavez Jr. either didn’t trust himself on the outside or simply didn’t have the skills to fight at a distance. As huge as he was, the 6’0” 181 pound Chavez Jr. should have stood at a distance and bombed Rubio out of there with right hands and jabs.

All Chavez Jr. did by crowding Rubio was smother his own power. He didn’t look strong at all and seemed to be only firing blanks. But his lack of speed was another problem that may have kept him from getting pushed up the rankings.

Chavez’s trainer Freddie Roach needs to teach him how to use his size because if Chavez Jr. fights like that against quicker fighters with more power than Rubio, he’ll get smashed on the inside. Chavez took a lot of punishment in the fight and it should have been a lot easier fight for him had he used his size by fighting on the outside.