By Dan Ambrose: In a sign that WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) might be worried about making weight for his September 15th fight on HBO pay-per-view, he’s reportedly brought strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza back with him to help him get ready for his bout against Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ariza told Philboxing.com “[A victory over Martinez] is going to take him [Chavez Jr] up there with Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he’s going to be one of the top three names in boxing.”

I think Ariza is going a little overboard here with that assumption. It’ll take a lot more than a win over a smaller 37-year-old Martinez for Chavez Jr. to get to the next level. He’s popular among Mexican boxing fans of his famous father Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., but he’s failed to become a huge star along the lines of Mayweather, Pacquiao or Miguel Cotto. Part of the problem is that Chavez Jr. still hasn’t fought anyone that was a big enough name for him to win over a lot of fans. Fighting Sergio Martinez is a good start, but it might takes wins over the likes of Kelly Pavlik, Felix Sturm, Saul Alvarez, Cotto, Andre Ward and Carl Froch for Chavez Jr. to really become a huge star.

If he could knock off some of those guys, preferably Pavlik, Ward, Cotto and Froch, Chavez Jr. would be there. However, I wouldn’t like Chavez Jr’s chances against Froch or Ward, and I think Pavlik would be a lot of problems as well due to his size. The one thing that Chavez Jr. has going for him is his size. As long as he’s able to make the 160 pound weight division and then balloon up to 180 like he’s been doing, he’ll be in a good position to win a lot of his fights.

He’s like the Adrien Broner of the middleweight division with his ability to gain a lot of weight after rehydrating. But once Chavez Jr. can’t make that weight anymore and is forced to fight against other 180 pounders in the 168 pound super middleweight division then all bets are off. He’ll almost surely struggle unless he’s very, very carefully matched to avoid the top dogs at that weight. He could be angled towards the paper champion at that weight WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz instead of Froch or Ward. Chavez Jr. could then milk the title for three or four years while waiting for Ward and Froch to age out.