By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach says former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 KO’s) is interested in coming back within the Wildcard Gym fold in Los Angeles, California. Chavez Jr. recently said he was shopping for a new trainer after losing to Sergio Martinez last September.
Roach said to Fighthubtv.com “Bob [Arum] tells me he [Chavez Jr] wants me back, and I told him ‘I’ll only train him if he shows up at the gym.’ I said ‘the first day he misses and I’ll go home.’ I will train him again but only if he shows up every day.”
I don’t know why Roach is even wasting his time considering this endeavor because it’s highly unlikely that Chavez Jr. will be able to last through an entire training camp without missing one or two days each week. Roach should know Chavez Jr. by now since he’s been training him since the John Duddy fight in 2010.
What’ll likely happen is Chavez Jr., if he actually does agree to train with Roach for his next fight, he’ll show up religiously for the first week or two, and then fall back into his old ways of training at his rented house in Los Angeles. I just hope it’s not the same scene as last time with Chavez Jr. cruising around in his underwear, eating cereal and waking up late in the day.
That has got to be one of the oddest training camps I’ve ever seen, and Roach put up with. Perhaps the worst part, at least for Roach, was that a lot of the stuff was captured by HBO’s 24/7 series, so Roach was seen as looking almost helpless while Chavez Jr. did his own thing.
Roach needs to be firm this time and assume going in that it’ll end badly. That way when Chavez Jr. does blow off a training session, Roach won’t be disappointed and will be ready to walk away.
Chavez Jr. is better off training with Roach because he has access to a lot of great fighters at his Wild Card gym, and it’s great for publicity purposes due to the Hollywood crowd that floats in and out of there on a daily basis.
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