(Photo: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: Despite watching his fighter Andy Lee recently get blasted out by WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) last month, trainer Emanuel Steward isn’t holding a grudge against Chavez Jr., and he feels he’s going to give former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) all he can handle on September 15th in their fight at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Steward said to eastsideboxing.com’s On the Ropes Boxing Radio Program “Chavez Jr fights to win and can maintain his hulk strength…Sergio being experienced, more seasoned, his speed, the left-handed style, but he’s nothing more than a little junior middleweight and Chavez Jr. is going to come in virtually a light heavyweight and maybe wear him down with pressure.”
Steward sees the Chavez Jr-Martinez fight as a bout between a light heavyweight in Chavez Jr. and a small junior middleweight with Martinez. Steward is probably correct, because Martinez came from the junior middleweight division when he moved up in weight in 2010 in a fight against WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik.
Martinez pulled off a huge upset in that fight, and rather than moving back down in weight he’s decided to stay at middleweight despite giving away a lot of size in every fight. Against Chavez Jr., Martinez is going to be giving away a massive amount of weight. He’ll be likely be facing a light heavyweight or a cruiserweight sized Chavez Jr. by the time they step foot in the ring on September 15th.
Martinez won’tlikely come into the Chavez Jr. fight weighing more than 164 tops, and this means that Martinez could be giving away a considerable amount of weight if Chavez Jr. weighs in over 180 lbs like he’s been doing lately. The weight right there will give Chavez Jr. a huge advantage to where he may not need much more, because he’ll be able to walk through Martinez’s shots all night long to possibly get a stoppage if he can trap him like he’s been doing against his smaller opposition in smaller sized rings.
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