Will Chavez Jr’s weight advantage help him against Andy Lee?

By Boxing News - 05/29/2012 - Comments

Image: Will Chavez Jr's weight advantage help him against Andy Lee?By Jason Kim: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (45-0-1, 31 KO’s) is one of the consistently heaviest middleweights that the division has seen in quite some time.

How Chavez Jr. can melt down from 180 lbs to make the 160 pound division for each fight is unknown, because most fighters would be weight drained dropping that much weight and then putting back on after rehydrating. Chavez Jr. will be facing the tall and slender 6’2″ Andy Lee (28-1, 20 KO’s) next month on June 16th at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. Lee will be taller than the 6’0″ Chavez Jr., but will still likely be out-weighed by 15 to 20 pounds on fight night.

Chavez Jr’s weight advantage has been a godsend against the smaller, lighter middleweights he’s been facing in the past couple of years. It’s been about two years since Chavez Jr. started putting on a lot of weight. Before that, his weight was in the ballpark of 160 from 2007 to 2009, but he was facing weak opposition back then. But since around 2010, Chavez Jr. has really packed on a lot of weight, but has been reluctant to move up in weight. It’s kind of undertandable because his skills wouldn’t match up against super middleweights because there too many good ones, and he probably couldn’t even pick up a paper title. It’s pretty much middleweight or nothing for Chavez Jr unless he wants to go after one of the WBC’s Silver straps at 168.

Unlike the fighters that Chavez Jr. has been facing recently, Lee is an athletic fighter who knows how to move around the ring. He’s not someone that Chavez Jr. can use his bulk against by bulling up against the ropes and just leaning and pushing. Lee will move around and land hooks, straight lefts and uppercuts. He’s a really difficult fighter to beat because he stands straight up and is able to move much quicker than his opponents. He’s got long legs and is incredibly swift.

Chavez Jr. won’t be able to do the things he’s done against the slower, heavier bodied middleweights. Chavez Jr. will probably weigh 180 pounds on fight night no matter how hard he trains to get his weight down. He’s going to be big and that could his downfall in this fight.



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