Rubio, 31, is 53-5-1 with 46 knockouts. More than any of those wins, however, he credits a Feb. 21, 2009, loss to Kelly Pavlik in a middleweight title fight with turning him around.
?It was a great experience fighting a guy of Kelly Pavlik?s stature,? Rubio said. ?I learned a lot about what it takes to win at that level. I made a lot of errors in that fight, but they will be corrected.?
Since that loss, Rubio has gone 10-0 with nine knockouts and has been a far more authoritative, confident-appearing fighter. Among those 10 victories was an impressive seventh-round stoppage of one of the game?s elite prospects, David Lemieux, on April 8, 2011. Lemieux entered the fight with a 25-0 record and 24 knockouts and was hailed as a potential star.
Fighting a world-class veteran such as Pavlik helped Rubio enough that it was he who was doing the teaching when he fought Lemieux.
?A lot of things came together for me in that fight,? Rubio said.
He professes great respect for Chavez Jr., who for most of his career had been handled with kid gloves. But Chavez won a world title in 2011 and defended it successfully against Peter Manfredo and, in the process, impressed Rubio.
Rubio isn?t expecting an easy fight and praised Chavez for becoming more than just the son of a famous father.
?He?s gotten to a higher level with his boxing skills than I had seen before,? Rubio said of Chavez. ?I give him a lot of credit for how hard he?s worked and how far he has come. He deserves a lot of respect for what he has accomplished. He?s the son of the great Julio Cesar Chavez and he gets a lot of attention because of the name that he has, but you can?t say that he is not a better fighter. He has improved his skills a great deal.?
