By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach better have figured out how to teach his pupil WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) how to block some punches with his gloves for a change because if he goes out there on September 15th using his head to block the huge shots from Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s), Roach will be as sad-faced as he was when he saw another one of his high profile fighters Amir Khan get blasted out recently.

It’s not as if Roach didn’t know that Khan was badly in need of defensive skills, because he’d been exposed recently in his last fight against Lamont Peterson last December. Now it’s Chavez Jr’s turn. I know he prides himself in his ability to take heavy punishment to the head, but this isn’t the fight to be looking to block Martinez’s punches with his head.

If Chavez Jr. doesn’t get out of the way of Martinez’s big left hand bombs, this fight won’t make it to the 6th round. I know Martinez hasn’t been knocking out his most recent opponents in the early rounds, but he hasn’t faced an opponent with as poor of defensive skills as Chavez Jr. since Martinez blasted out Paul Williams in two rounds in November 2010. Chavez Jr. is about as wide open as Williams was, if not more. What makes it so easy for Martinez is that Chavez Jr. lowers his head like a primitive fighter from the 50s, and plods forward looking to fight in close.

It’s a really old time style that puts Chavez Jr. in the position where he gets a lot. He’s still winning but a large part of that is due to his huge size advantage over his opponents. He’s got this ability to take off massive amounts of weight to go from a cruiserweight weighing 180 lbs to make weight at 160.

Once Chavez Jr. rehydrates back up to 180 lbs, he’s a lot heavier than the guys he’s facing. The size enables Chavez Jr. to walk through shots from his opponents that he likely wouldn’t be able to do if he were forced to fight at a weight division closer to his own weight such as super middleweight or light heavyweight.