(Photo: Chris Farina – Top Rank) By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) looks downright huge in recent photos taken of him as he gets ready for his September 15th fight against Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In estimating Chavez Jr’s weight I’d say he’s probably in the low 190s with a little more than a month to go before his big fight against the 37-year-old Martinez. The thing is Chavez Jr. doesn’t look fat or out of shape at his current weight. He looks to be in good enough shape to get in the ring right now and fight Martinez.
That’s all muscle that Chavez Jr. is carrying around on his cruiserweight-sized frame and I just don’t how he’s going to melt off enough water weight to make the 160 pound limit. Chavez Jr. has got to be one of the biggest middleweights ever for the division in terms of weight.
At 26, Chavez Jr. isn’t going to be able to get away with dehydrating down to fight smaller fighters forever. Eventually he’s not going to be able to hit the mark or he’s finally going to start feeling the affects of all that weight he’s stripping off each time he dehydrates to make weight.
If boxing had it’s act together there would be strict rehydration limits to where a fighter could gain back no more than 10 pounds of water weight before the fight and the secondary weigh-in would be 30 minutes before the fight to keep fighters from still coming into their bouts 20 pounds over the weight limit.
Martinez will have to find a way to deal with Chavez Jr’s size because he’s not going to be able to stand in front of him without taking a lot of punishment. Chavez Jr. is simply too heavy for Martinez to be able to stand in front of him for any length of time. Martinez will have to keep moving and not let Chavez Jr. use his size to his advantage.
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