By Eric Thomas: Newly crowned WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (50-2-2, 28 KO’s) says he’s open to idea of fighting a rematch against former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 KO’s) after dethroning him last Saturday night in a mostly one-sided 12 round unanimous decision victory at a sold out Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Martinez said this after the fight as quoted by RingTV “If Julio wants a rematch, we’ll do a rematch.”
Chavez Jr’s promoter Bob Arum is also interested in possibly putting Chavez Jr. back in with Martinez to see if he can improve on his performance. Whether that’ll actually happen is questionable because I think Arum might have second thoughts after he watches the fight for a second time. Chavez Jr. was really out of his league in this fight until landing a big left hook to put Martinez down in the 12th. Chavez Jr. flurried on a hurt Martinez after he got up, but wasn’t able to land a big enough shot to finish him off.
Arum would be taking a big risk by putting Chavez Jr. back in with Martinez, because there was nothing in Chavez Jr’s performance that would suggest that he’d be able to do a better job in a second fight. Chavez Jr. would basically have little more than a puncher’s chance at beat Martinez. Frankly, it wouldn’t be a good chance because Martinez will no doubt learn from this fight and focus more on boxing Chavez Jr. in a rematch. Martinez won’t reckless like he did in the 12th by standing in front of Chavez Jr. Martinez got a little too cocky in the last round and he almost paid a severe price for doing that. I think it’s safe to say that Martinez respects Chavez Jr. now after that experience, and he won’t make the same mistake twice.
It’s a bad gamble on Arum’s part to put Chavez Jr. back in with Martinez, because Chavez Jr. is so painfully slow and he doesn’t his punches together well like normal knockout punchers. Chavez Jr really needs Martinez to stand in front of him like he foolishly did in the 12th for him to succeed, and that’s not going to happen in a second.
Unless Chavez Jr. is hard-headed about his loss and pressures Arum to make the risky rematch with Martinez, look for Arum instead to point Chavez Jr. towards safer waters against a more stationary fighter so that Chavez Jr. can start winning again. Those are the type of fighters that Arum has built Chavez Jr’s resume on, and it wouldn’t be smart to put Chavez Jr. back in with Martinez because he’s too fast, too mobile and too slick for Chavez Jr. to have a very chance of winning.
I would suggest having Arum try and fight IBF/WBA middleweight champion Daniel Geale next, but I think Geale would likely beat Chavez Jr. as well, because he’s even more mobile than Martinez and he’s not as cocky as him. Geale would fight smart the entire time and would likely beat Chavez Jr. by a lopsided decision.
Arum needs to keep Chavez Jr. away from WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin as well, because he’s a bigger puncher than Chavez Jr. and so dangerous because of his one punch power.
Arum just needs to start picking out mediocre fringe contenders for Chavez Jr. to build him back up and maybe he can win one of the interim middleweight titles and then have that changed to a regular title by help from one of the sanctioning bodies. With the sanctioning bodies giving out two titles per weight class, Chavez Jr’s chances of getting another title at 160 are extremely high even without facing the dangerous guys like Golovkin, Martinez and Geale.
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