By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s next fight on June 22nd will be taking place in San Antonio, Texas, at the At&T Center, according to mysanantonio.com.
Chavez Jr’s opponent will be either Brian Vera or Darren Barker. This fight is meant to be a tune-up fight for the 27-year-old Chavez Jr. to get him ready for a possible rematch against WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez later on in the year.
That fight rests on whether Chavez Jr. can beat his June 22nd opponent, and Martinez beating Martin Murray on April 27th in addition to Chavez Jr. agreeing to the random blood testing that Martinez wants in order to agree to fight him again.
The decision for Chavez Jr. to fight in Texas instead of Las Vegas, Nevada was made by his promoter Bob Arum. Chavez Jr. recently was given a huge $900,000 fine by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for testing positive for marijuana for his last fight against Martinez last September.
Chavez Jr’s promoter Arum said soon after that Chavez Jr. would be fighting next in Texas rather than Las Vegas again. It’s unclear if Arum is doing this to get back at Las Vegas or if he had planned all along to take Chavez Jr’s next fight to Texas.
It is interesting to note that Arum is looking to place his biggest star in his Top Rank stable Manny Pacquiao’s next fight outside of the U.S to Macao, China instead of having him fight in Las Vegas where Pacquiao typically fights.
Chavez Jr. vs. Barker or Vera are decent fights. Those are guys that Chavez Jr. can beat with his weight advantage and there’s not much danger of either of them using a lot of movement to out-box him the same way that Martinez did last September.
There is a possible Chavez Jr. could lose but it’s not likely given his size advantage. He’s basically a cruiserweight fighting middleweights and that really helps him. Barker’s promoter Eddie Hearn said that Chavez Jr’s management spoke of wanting a catchweight for the fight, meaning that Chavez Jr. would be allowed to fight above 160.
There’s no word from Hearn whether he’s okay with that, but it seems likely that they will be given the money and the opportunity the fight presents for Barker.
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