Chavez Jr. will be weight-drained for Canelo fight says Monroe

BoxingNews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Former world title challenger Willie Monroe Jr. believes that Golden Boy Promotions are looking to protect their money fighter Saul “Canelo’ Alvarez by having him fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by having him melt down to 164 ½ pounds to fight at a catch-weight on May 6.

Monroe sees the catch-weight as one that will weaken Chavez Jr. to the point where he’s little more than a junior middleweight in terms of power. Monroe says that the 6’1”Chavez Jr. is too big to be fighting at a catch-weight of 164.5lbs against Canelo, and he may be right.

Chavez Jr. is barely able to make 168lbs at this point in his career. He failed three times to make 168 in the last four years, and he barely made it in his last fight against Dominik Britsch last December.

Monroe Jr. (21-2, 6 KOs) said this to Fighthype.com about Canelo’s fight against Chavez Jr:

“Making Chavez come down that far is going to be like fighting a junior middleweight,” said Monroe Jr. “He’s just too big. So if he makes 164, he’ll be drained. That’s setting the advantages up for Canelo and I get it. They’re protecting their investment. Canelo makes the most money in fighting right now. He sells the most pay-per-view right now, so they have to watch the way they move him. But that’s not to say that there doesn’t come a point where stuff starts to look real funny.”

It’s already looking funny to a lot of boxing fans how Golden Boy is matching Canelo by steering him around the dangerous threats such as Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Daniel Jacobs and Julian Williams. Golden Boy is matching Canelo against guys that he absolutely can beat. Look at his recent fights: Amir Khan, Liam Smith, Miguel Cotto, James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo.

Cotto is a decent pick, but he’s old and small at 36-years-old and nowhere near as heavy as Canelo. I don’t think anyone in boxing thinks that Cotto is a better fighter than Jermall Charlo right now. If Canelo had to face Jermall Charlo, he’d have a real fight on his hands. The same with if he was to fight a rematch against Erislandy Lara, who he beat by a controversial 12 round split decision in 2014.

Canenlo is being matched up against a lot of flawed fighters and guys from the past. Khan is a welterweight, who has seen better days in his career. Liam Smith never was seen as being in the same class as the talented 154lb fighters like the Charlo brothers, Andrade, Julian Williams or Lara.

It’s Chavez Jr’s mistake in agreeing to the 164.5lb catch-weight for the Canelo fight. He probably had no choice but to agree to the catch-weight if he wanted the fight though. I think Golden Boy would have given the fight to Chavez Jr. if he didn’t agree to come in at a catch-weight. That’s too bad that it’s such a low one, because Chavez Jr. is going to have a hard time trying to make that weight.

With the $1 million per pound weight penalty for the Canelo fight, it’s going to put Chavez Jr. at a clear disadvantage. He’s going to have pressure on him to make the weight or else he’ll watch his guaranteed purse evaporate quickly with him coming in over the weight limit by two or three pounds. Agreeing to the catch-weight of 164.5lbs was one thing, but agreeing to a contract with a huge $1 million per pound weight penalty is even worse. That obviously is going to hurt Chavez Jr. more than Canelo, who is moving up in weight from his perch at 155lbs.

Monroe Jr. thinks it would have been better if Canelo had picked a middleweight out for his next fight and fought at a catch-weight of 157 or 158lbs rather than Chavez Jr., and fighting a catch-weight in the super middleweight division. He sees him being too weak to have a chance of winning the fight. Monroe Jr. sees this as a money fight for Canelo to be fighting Chavez Jr.
Canelo should beat Chavez Jr. based on his youth, and the fact that he’s fighting a guy that is no longer doing much with his boxing career since his loss to Sergio Martinez. Unless Chavez Jr. can make weight without it draining him, he’s going to have a lot of problems against Canelo. Chavez Jr. looked slow and sluggish in his last fight against Britsch last December.

Chavez Jr. claimed that he didn’t want to push himself because he was afraid of running out of gas in the fight. He obviously had had a hard time making the 168lb weight limit for the fight, so he stayed in 1st gear for the entire fight for fear of exerting himself and running out of gas. It’s going to be a lot worse for Chavez Jr. against Canelo, because he’ll need to get down to 164.5lbs, a weight that he hasn’t been at since 2012. Chavez Jr. hasn’t been fighting often in the last five years, and he’s not been fighting good opposition with the exception of his knockout loss to Andrej Fonfara in 2015.

Maybe Chavez Jr. can come into the fight in his past possible shape and roll back the years of inactivity that he’s had to somehow beat Canelo. I don’t see it happening through.

Monroe Jr. has won his last two fights against John Thompson and Gabriel Rosado after losing to Gennady Golovkin in 2015.