(Photo: Chris Farina – Top Rank) By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s fans seem to be okay with Chavez Jr. possibly out-weighing Sergio Martinez by 20 pounds when they step inside the ring on September 15th in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Some of the fans feel that if Chavez Jr. can weigh over 180 lbs and use that size to get an advantage over Martinez then more power to him, as long as he makes weight for the fight. However, I don’t think it’s going to matter even if Chavez Jr. does come in sporting a 20 pound weight advantage and effectively fight as a cruiserweight against a middleweight.
It doesn’t matter because I see this fight as the middleweight division’s version of Jack Dempsey vs. Jess Willard with Chavez Jr. being the slower Willard to Martinez’s Dempsey. The 6’6″ Willard had a huge size and reach advantage over the 6’1″ Dempsey and outweighed him by a considerable margin. However, it didn’t matter because Dempsey was so much faster than Willard and ended up pounding him viciously and knocking him out in the third round.
Willard ended up with a cracked skull, badly broken ribs, a shattered jaw, a broken nose, and having four of his teeth knocked out. Dempsey really worked worked the much bigger Willard over in the three rounds of the fight and showed that size doesn’t matter. I feel it’s going to be the same thing with Martinez giving Chavez Jr. a similar beating. It might not be quite as bad as the beating that Willard took in the 1919 loss to Dempsey, but I feel that Martinez is going to be hitting Chavez Jr. at will and will end up with an early knockout in the the same way.
Chavez Jr. won’t be able to handle Martinez’s speed and power, and will be taken out quick. With Freddie Roach working his corner, Chavez Jr. might be saved by having him throw in the towel at some point. Roach isn’t going to let a money fighter like Chavez Jr. take an unnecessary beating because he likely won’t want to ruin the money train for other fights.
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