By Jason Kim: Undefeated middleweight contender Martin Murray (23-0-1, 10 KO’s) is a possibility the opponent for WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s next title defense on June 16th in El Paso, Texas, according to news from Dan Rafael.

Murray, #3 WBA, #7 WBC, recently was held to a controversial 12 round draw against WBA World middleweight champion Felix Sturm last December. It was controversial, as some boxing fans thought Murray should have won it, but an equal amount thought he should have lost the fight. I personally thought Murray didn’t do enough to get win, and was lucky not to have been knocked out in the 12th round.

If Chavez Jr. (45-0-1, 31 KO’s) and his promoter Bob Arum chooses the 29-year-old Murray to fight next, then it’s going to put the World Boxing Council President Jose Sulaiman in a tough situation where he’ll have to decide to ignore this and let Chavez Jr. go ahead and fight Murray or step in and strip him of his title for failing to fight his mandatory challenger Sergio Martinez next. Sulaiman recently said that unless Chavez Jr. faces Martinez next, he’ll have to strip him. It’s not known whether the stripping of the WBC title will come before or after Chavez Jr. goes ahead and fights Murray. If Sulaiman fails to do anything and lets Chavez Jr. fight Murray rather than Martinez, then it’s going to make the WBC look really bad because they previously ordered for Chavez Jr. to fight Martinez. Chavez Jr. was able to get out of that for his last fight against Marco Antonio Rubio for just this fight by getting permission from the WBC. However, for Chavez Jr. and Arum to go ahead and do this again by fighting someone else rather than Martinez, it’s going to put the WBC in a position where they’re looked at as a useless organization by a lot of boxing fans if they let Chavez Jr. and Arum bypass Martinez again.

#6 WBC ranked middleweight contender Andy Lee had been mentioned as a potential opponent for Chavez Jr’s next fight, but he’s no longer being mentioned and I can’t say I’m surprised by that. Unlike the guys that Chavez Jr. has been facing his entire career, Lee can actually fight and it wouldn’t matter if Chavez Jr. came into the fight against him weighing over 180 pounds. Lee would still likely beat him by knockout or a severe beating. I knew when Lee’s name was mentioned as a possible opponent for Chavez Jr. that it would never actually happen. He goes against the weak, slower and mediocre guys that have been fed to Chavez Jr. for most of his career.

Murray is a decent fighter. Overall, I think he’s about the 16th best fighter in the division. However, he’s nowhere close to being as good as Sergio Martinez and probably isn’t good enough to beat Chavez Jr., especially if Chavez Jr. comes into the fight weighing over 180 like he’s been doing recently. Murray won’t be able to beat a guy that big and will end up losing the fight.