By Dan Ambrose: If you looked at the face of former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 KO’s) last Saturday night after his 12 round decision loss to Sergio Martinez (50-2-2, 28 KO’s), you may have noticed how badly marked up Chavez Jr’s face was. He looked like a copy of Rocky Balboa after he took a beating from Apollo Creed in the movie “Rocky.”

It wasn’t just how marked up Chavez Jr’s face was, though, that I have a problem with. It’s how many head shots he took in the fight with Sergio. Chavez Jr. took an enormous amount of head shots, and it looked at times like he was using his head to block shots instead of gloves. This wasn’t lost by the judges, who gave Martinez almost every round of the fight by the scores of 117-110, 118-109 and 118-109.

I know Chavez Jr envisions himself having a long and successful career as a fighter, but I don’t think he’s going to if he keeps taking punishment like he against Martinez. I’m just wondering if Chavez Jr. will be able to speak without slurring by the time he’s 30, because he’s taking punishment in his fights. His famous father Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. took a lot of punishment as well during his career, but at least he was good at blocking a lot of the stuff thrown his way. He didn’t just lower his head and take the shots on the top of his head the way that Chavez Jr. has been doing. That can’t be good for you.

Chavez Jr. may need to think about finding a trainer that can teach him some defense so he can try and prolong his career because if he has another couple of fights like he did last Saturday against Martinez then I don’t see him lasting too much longer in the sport. When you take beatings like that it tends to wear you down for future fights. We could then start seeing Chavez Jr. getting beaten by the same B level fighters that he build his impressive record once Martinez is through with him.