By Allan Fox: In looking at how Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. went about getting ready for his fight with Sergio Martinez earlier this month on September 15th, it seemed as if Chavez Jr. wasn’t fully prepared mentally to endure the grueling workouts that were needed for him to get ready to fight Martinez.

Chavez Jr. skipped training sessions with his trainer Freddie Roach, stayed at home a great deal, and stayed up to late hours instead of training during normal hours. It just seemed like he wasn’t ready to commit to what was needed to get ready for the fight in the traditional manner.

Steve Kim spoke of this during the Jim Lampley Fight Game on HBO last Saturday night, saying “I think it’s par for the course. There have been failed drug tests before [for Chavez Jr]. There have been rumors in Texas that he cut out on tests. There was also a DUI prior to his fight with Marco Antonio Rubio in February. If you watched 24/7, the signs were there. With marijuana usage, one of the by products is laziness. And we had a young man [Chavez Jr] that did not want to leave his home, eating cereal at night in his underwear. I think this speaks to the general question that is much bigger than marijuana use is. His overall commitment to the process of prizefighting is very flawed. Listen, I don’t think we should demonize him. Marijuana is not a PED [performance enhancing drug]; its not even a masking agent, according to the experts. But what I think it speaks to is the overall disrespect to the game and not understanding the overall process of actual prize fighting.”

You would think that Chavez Jr. would have figured out what he needs to do in order to get prepared for fights having been around his father Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. during many of his fights in his career. Chavez Jr. should have been able to absorb what his father went through to get ready for his fights just by watching him. Instead, though, Chavez Jr. seems to want to go about doing it his own way, which is totally alien to what most fighters do when getting ready for fights.