(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Dan Ambrose: The hulking WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) says he’ll be looking to send 37-year-old Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) into retirement on Saturday in their battle on HBO pay per view in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Chavez Jr. said this to Martinez as quoted by fightnews.com “In 24/7 he said it was very difficult to keep Kelly Pavlik off of him. This Saturday he’s going to have me all over him and he’s never tasted that. I’m not only going to beat you, I’m going to retire you.”

The retirement threat goes along with the 26-year-old Chavez Jr’s theme all along of suggesting that the 37-year-old Martinez is an old man and is ready for retirement now. It kind of flies in the face of reality, however, because Martinez has knocked out his last four opponents he’s faced. Additionally, Martinez has faced a lot better opposition in his last six fights than Chavez Jr. has. It’s not even close. If you compare the kinds of guys that Martinez has been fighting and beating to those that Chavez Jr. has been fighting it’s startling.

In Martinez’s last five fights he’s faced the following opponents:

Matthew Macklin
Darren Barker
Serhiy Dzinziruk
Paul Williams
Kelly Pavlik

Now compare that with the last five opponents that Chavez Jr. has faced:

Andy Lee
Marco Antonio Rubio
Peter Manfredo Jr.
Sebastian Zbik
Billy Lyell

There’s no comparison. Martinez has faced the much better opposition than Chavez Jr. and he’s been knocking everyone out apart from Pavlik. Chavez Jr., against weaker opposition, has knocked out out two out of his last five opponents. He stopped Lee and Manfredo Jr. That’s not too hard to do, especially when you’ve got a big size advantage over them like the one Chavez Jr.

I think Martinez is going to give Chavez Jr. a lot of problems on Saturday night and I’d be surprised if Chavez Jr. finishes the fight on his feet. He’s got a great chin but he’s only human and he’s already been staggered in the past against much lesser punchers than Martinez.