By Jason Kim: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (45-0-1, 31 KO’s) will be facing either middleweight contender Andy Lee (28-1, 20 KO’s) or junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KO’s) in an HBO televised fight on June 16th at the Sun Bowl, in El Paso, Texas, according to fightnews.com.

The information was passed on by Brad Goodman, the matchmaker for Top Rank, Chavez Jr’s promoter. It’s thought that the 25-year-old Martirosyan will likely be the one that gets the Chavez Jr. fight because he fights for Top Rank as well, and that would make it a much easier in house fight to put together without having to share promotional duties with another promoter. Additionally, Martirosyan isn’t as tough to figure out as Lee, who is a southpaw with a long reach and knockout power in either hand. Lee can out-slug you and out-box you. Martirosyan is more of a classic Freddie Roach fighter with his hit and run style of fighting in the Amir Khan mold but without the Khan hand speed and tendency to shove and grab. Martirosyan does do a fair amount of clinching, though, but the head pulling type that Khan seems to prefer.

Chavez Jr. is well aware of Martirosyan’s ability having sparred with him in the past in a heated back and forth sparring session that seemed to be controlled by Martirosyan. Chavez Jr. was pretty well handled by Martirosyan from the looks of the video. However, that was with head gear and huge gloves on. Chavez Jr. might be able to do a much better job without the over-sized gloves and head gear. The weight advantage for Chavez Jr. would be significant to say the least because Martirosyan is a light middleweight and he’s probably be out-weighed by close to 20 pounds by Chavez Jr. Martirosyan isn’t someone that puts on a lot of weight after he weighs in at 154. That could be enough for Chavez Jr. to easily win the fight having a big weight advantage. That’s obviously another reason why Martirosyan might be the more appealing opponent for Chavez Jr. and his team.

The WBC would have to sanction the fight. Naturally, Martirosyan isn’t ranked in the top 15 in the middleweight division, and that’s something that the World Boxing Council would have to overlook for this fight to take place.