Chavez Jr-Martinez: Being 20 pounds heavier might not be enough for Julio

By Boxing News - 07/08/2012 - Comments

Image: Chavez Jr-Martinez: Being 20 pounds heavier might not be enough for JulioBy Dan Ambrose: On September 15th, WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) will finally be defending his title against Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) in a fight that will give a pretty clear indication of who the best fighter is in the middleweight division.

Martinez, 37, is the faster and bigger puncher of the two, but whether that will be enough to overcome the huge weight advantage for Chavez Jr. is the question. Although Chavez Jr. fights in the middleweight division, the weight he’s been fighting at is in the light heavyweight division range with Chavez Jr. weighing 180lbs. This is a significant amount of weight when you look at the fact that Martinez is a small middleweight and will be lucky if he comes in at 165.

Some boxing fans may think that Chavez Jr’s 15 pound weight advantage will be meaningless against the fast hands and big power of Martinez, but I’m not so sure. What we’re really talking about here is a light heavyweight facing a small middleweight. Chavez Jr’s isn’t fighting at super middleweight (168 lbs) for his fights. He’s past that into the light heavyweight range when he fights. Actually, 180lbs is really a cruiserweight, because the light heavyweight division ends at 175, and anything above that is a cruiserweight up to 200 lbs. Granted, 180 is a small cruiserweight, but it’s a cruiserweight nonetheless.

Martinez has great power, but hitting someone that size may not produce the same kinds of results he’s been getting lately. Chavez Jr. is huge, and that’s not likely to change for this fight. I expect Chavez Jr. to be no less than 180 lbs. He possibly could come in at 175, but that’s not a whole heck of a lot of difference. Martinez is going to have problems in this fight if he can’t stay on the move and/or if he can’t find a way to hurt Chavez Jr. The thing is Martinez can’t stop and trade with Chavez Jr. for any length of time because that weight advantage will be too much for Martinez. This could get in the way of Martinez not being able to sit down on his punches because he’ll have to keep moving the entire time to avoid getting taken out by the bigger body shots from Chavez Jr. Ideally, they should have some kind of rehydration weight limit that would prevent Chavez Jr. from rehydrating up to 180 lbs and walking into the fight weighing that much, but boxing still doesn’t have it’s act together and this kind of thing is still be allowed. Hopefully in the future they’ll change this, but it’ll likely take someone getting seriously hurt by a much bigger fighter before that happens.

I still see Chavez Jr’s huge weight advantage ultimately not being enough for him to pull off the win. This will likely be the same kind of fight as when Martinez beat a hulking Kelly Pavlik, who ballooned up after rehydrating for their 2010 fight.



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