You have to admit that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is a pretty fortunate fellow.
When WBC president Jose Sulaiman stripped middleweight champion Sergio ‘Maravilla’ Martinez of his WBC middleweight crown everybody knew what was up, as the Argentinean was given the boot so that Sebastian Zbik could claim the crown. And the immediate move after that was to pit Chavez Jr. against the limited Zbik, so that his path towards a championship could be that much easier.
<--- Slideshow: Chavez Jr., Zbik, and Freddie Roach in Los Angeles
Chavez Jr. and Zbik face off on June 4th in Los Angeles and today they came face to face inside of the Staples Center to hype the contest. The fight has a very odd tone to it, as Chavez very well could end up on top given just how basic his German foe is, but his future afterwards is very uncertain.
On hand with the 25-year old fighter on this day was his trainer Freddie Roach, a great impact in his life over the past year. Since Chavez teamed up with the world renown trainer he has seemed to have a new confidence about him, as evidenced by his June thrashing over Ireland’s John Duddy. However, one fight later and Chavez under whelmed against journeyman Billy Lyell, making the Zbik opportunity all the more crucial.
I caught up with the young fighter last month inside of the hotel lobby of the MGM Grand moments after Miguel Cotto’s destruction of Ricardo Mayorga. Chavez insisted to me that his mind is solely on his next fight and stressed how important it is being with Roach.
“It’s the most important fight of my life,” said Chavez. “Training with Freddie is always great. I can’t wait for camp.”
Indeed, it does appear that part of his poor performance against Lyell was the fact that he had only three weeks of training and with a full camp behind him he has a great chance at snatching the WBC title away from Zbik. He will always have his detractors and sure, maybe the cards were stacked in his favor a bit, but Chavez Jr. has everything in front of him to take his career to the next level in a few months’ time.
