By Dan Ambrose: Memo Heredia, the strength and conditioning coach of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., expects him to gain back between 10 to 14 pounds after making the 164 ½ pound catch-weight for his May 6 fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Chavez Jr. will be no more than 178 pounds on the night of the fight. With three months to go before the Canelo fight, Chavez Jr. is already at 180 pounds. He’s been working hard on his cardio to take weight off and increase his stamina for the fight.
With the time that is remaining before the fight, it’s going to be potentially difficult for Chavez Jr. not to take off too much weight and wind up weakened. Chavez Jr. and Heredia have to know that Canelo will likely be in the 180s for the fight. There’s even a possibility that Canelo could bulk up to 190. He puts on a great deal of weight, and he doesn’t seem to mind adding the weight.
Thus far, Canelo has been able to get away with adding massive amounts of water weight after he makes weights for his fights. Perhaps one reason why Canelo is able to get away with putting so much weight back on is he has a big weight advantage over his opponents, and he rarely fights good fighters that are a threat to him. The last time Canelo fought a fighter his own size that was in his prime was his 2014 fight against Erislandy Lara, and he appeared to lose that fight.
“Normally we are looking for a maximum weight gain of 10 to 14 lbs.,” said Heredia to ESPN Deportes. “Junior is losing weight well, gradually, there will be no dehydration. There will not be a rebound. We will look for 10 as a minimum, but if we can raise 14 it is fine, it is a comfortable weight for Junior. He will have mobility and less wear in reference to oxygenation. We will do well,” said Heredia.
Chavez Jr. is going to need to fight hard like he did in the 12th round of his fight against Sergio Martinez in 2012. Chavez Jr. knocked Martinez down in that round, and had him on the verge of a knockout. However, in the first 11 rounds of the fight, Chavez Jr. fought at a slow pace and allowed Martinez to build up an insurmountable lead. Chavez Jr. looked like he wasn’t into the fight mentally until the 12th.
If Chavez Jr. fights like that against Canelo, he could wind up getting knocked out, because he sits down on his punches a lot more than Martinez used to. That doesn’t mean that Canelo would have beaten the 2012 version of Martinez that Chavez Jr. lost to. Canelo would have had major problems against Martinez when he was healthy before he injured his right knee.