By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 KO’s) probably is wasting his time by fighting WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (50-2-2, 28 KO’s), because the only thing that Chavez Jr. will get out of facing Martinez a second time is a nice payday. Chavez Jr. will not beat Martinez next year or the year after, not if Chavez Jr. continues to rehydrate up to 180+ to fight him.

That’s much too big to defeat a quick-footed fighter like Martinez. That’s a small cruiserweight trying to beat a quick middleweight. It’s not going to happen. Cruiserweights are slow and not nearly as fast as middleweights. But Chavez Jr. isn’t like a real cruiserweight, because a real cruiserweight isn’t losing 20 pounds to fight in the cruiserweight division, at least not the good ones. If they’re weighing 220 lbs, they’re going to fight at heavyweight where the money is a lot better.

Taking all that weight off to get from down from 180+ to 160, is hard on Chavez Jr. and keeps him from having the energy and the foot speed to fight hard for 12 rounds and it hurts him with his movement around the ring. This is why Chavez Jr. is going to have to try and bring his weight down to 170 range to have a chance to beat Martinez. That’s probably not going to happen because Chavez Jr. really grew out of the middleweight division more than a year ago, as he’s filled out and can’t trim 170.

Chavez Jr. is walking around nearly 200 lbs between fights and having to trim off all that weight, much of it water weight to get down to 160. He’s not going to be able to lose all that water and then fight hard enough to beat Martinez after he puts the water weight back on after he rehydrates after the weigh-in. This is why I think Chavez Jr. should think seriously about moving up in weight to either super middleweight or preferably light heavyweight. He’s not going to be able to beat Martinez in the rematch, because he’s going to be taking it easy trying to avoid gassing out due to all the weight he took off.

There’s no reason for Chavez Jr. to take the Martinez rematch because Chavez Jr. has plenty of opportunities to make big money fighting other guys in other divisions. He doesn’t need to stay at middleweight to fight Martinez again, because he’s not going to win this fight. It’s not needed for him to make big money.