By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (48-1-1, 32 KOs) plans on moving down to super middleweight after his catch-weight fight at 172 pounds next month against light heavyweight Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs) on April 18th at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Chavez Jr wants a fight against WBA 168 pound champion Carl Froch next after the Fonfara fight, although Chavez Jr has also spoke of wanting to fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin as well.
“I think after this fight I’m going down to 168 and stay at that weight for one or two years rather than move to 175 right now,” Chavez Jr said via Fightnews.com. “I don’t think my body is 175. Now my body is 168, but after one year off that’s why we’re fighting at 172.”
I think Chavez Jr is underestimating his body right now, because he would be a solid light heavyweight if he wanted to. You can make an argument that Chavez Jr is now a cruiserweight, and that’s why it seems baffling that he doesn’t see his own body as a 175 pound fighter.
If Chavez Jr is weighing well above 175 and struggling to make the 172 pound catch-weight, then that suggests that he’s at least a light heavyweight, if not a cruiserweight.
“I never missed making weight in 12 years,” Chavez Jr said. “I don’t have a problem. If he doesn’t make the weight, maybe we’ll have $100,000.”
There’s an expensive weight penalty of $100K per pound for the Chavez-Fonfara. Of those two fighters, it’s hard to tell for sure which of them will be in the biggest danger of not making the weight.
Fonfara fights in the 175 pound division, so he has to come in three pounds lighter than he normally does by fighting at the 172 pound catch-weight. But with Chavez Jr, he’s looked huge for his fights at middleweight and super middleweight. He might find it more difficult than Fonfara to drain down to 172.
It’s in Chavez Jr’s best interest to avoid the light heavyweight and cruiserweight divisions like the plague, because he would have little advantage in fighting in those weight classes like he did when he was fighting at middleweight or super middleweight.
If Chavez moves up to light heavyweight, he’ll have to contend with guys like Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson, and those are not good match-ups for Chavez Jr. Fighting at cruiserweight would be even worse for Chavez Jr, because he’s have to take on guys like Marco Huck, Yoan Hernandez, Denis Lebedev, Grigory Drozd, Krzystof Wlodarczyk, Rakhim Chakhkiev, Ola Afolabi and Thabiso Mchunu. Those would be really punishing fights for Chavez Jr, and I don’t know if he could win any of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWR2wMGGk-U
The Fonfara fight doesn’t make a lot of sense for Chavez Jr, because he’d talked about wanting to fight at super middleweight against Froch. If he’s really serious about wanting to fight in the 168 pound division against the big stars in that weight class, then why is he fighting Fonfara at 172? It makes no sense at all. It makes about as much sense as Chavez Jr fighting middleweight journeyman Brian Vera in his last two fights after moving up to super middleweight.
If you’re moving up to super middleweight then it was senseless for Chavez Jr to fight a middleweight in his last two fights in Brian Vera. At this point, Chavez Jr still hasn’t fought a super middleweight, and he still won’t have faced one even after fighting Fonfara.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Chavez Jr looks and fights once he actually does fight at 168. That’s only 8 pounds higher than the 160 pound middleweight limit, and Chavez Jr looks sickly when making weight at middleweight.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he looks just as sick in trying to make super middleweight. He can talk about how he feels he’s not a true 175 pound fighter, but when he tries to make the 168 pound limit, I won’t be surprised if Chavez Jr looks really unhealthy at that weight.
The super middleweight division is a really bad one for Chavez Jr unless he targets WBO champion Arthur Abraham. Chavez Jr doesn’t match up well against Carl Froch, Andre Ward, Anthony Dirrell, and he won’t match up well against the winner of the Andre Dirrell vs. James DeGale fight.
I suspect that Chavez Jr will eventually move up in weight to light heavyweight after he suffers two or three losses at super middleweight. Chavez Jr will likely say he feels weak at the weight rather than him simply getting beaten by better fighters than himself. But like I said, there isn’t place for Chavez Jr to go at 175 due to Stevenson and Kovalev being at that weight.
Chavez Jr would have to target WBA champion Jurgen Braehmer if he wanted any chance of capturing a world title at 175. It won’t be easy trying to get as fight against Braehmer, because he’s very careful in who he faces nowadays. Chavez Jr might have to wait a couple of years before he can get a shot at Braehmer’s WBA title.
Chavez Jr should be able to get past Fonfara on April 18th. I think it’s going to be a really punishing fight for Chavez Jr, but he should be able to beat the 6’2” Fonfara by a decision. Chavez Jr will then be ready to fight Froch later this year if the two can negotiate a fight. With a one-sided loss to Froch, Chavez Jr’s stock will further drop. He’s already lost a lot of stock from his one-sided loss to Sergio Martinez and his controversial win over Vera in their first fight.
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