By Dan Ambrose: It sure doesn’t hurt being the son of a boxing great like Julio Cesar Chavez. His son, unbeaten middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (42-0-1, 30 KO’s), faces WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik (30-0, 10 KO’s) on June 4th on HBO. Zbik, 28, is considered a paper champion by a lot of fans, as he had the WBC title handed to him without a fight after the World Boxing Council stripped Sergio Martinez of his title recently.

At the same time, the WBC has Chavez Jr., a still unproven fighter, ranked #1, and will get the opportunity to fight the little known Zbik on June 4th for the strap. The question is will boxing fans acknowledge the young Chavez Jr. as any kind of champion if he beats Zbik on June 4th? My guess is no. If you were to rank the top middleweights in the division, Chavez Jr. probably wouldn’t fall in the top 10. For me, I don’t see Chavez Jr. as a top 14.

I have him at number #15 behind guys like Martinez, Dimitry Pirog, Paul Williams, Felix Sturm, Kelly Pavlik, among others. Chavez Jr. just seems out of place at number #1 and it’s hard to take him seriously as a top contender when the best fighters he’s faced are John Duddy and Billy Lyell. Those are decent B level fighters, but that’s the main knock on Chavez Jr. He’s faced nothing but B class fighters his entire eight-year pro career and now he’s being given a title shot over many guys ranked below him that would likely easily beat him.

I’m sure that his fight with Zbik will bring in good ratings because many fans of his father will be tuning in to watch him fight. But that doesn’t mean that he’ll be taken seriously by boxing fans if he beats Zbik, because Zbik had the title handed to him without winning it in a fight. Martinez would have likely easily beaten Zbik if they had fought. And the same goes for Chavez.