Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Martin Murray possible for October

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Julio Cesar Chavez Sr is tweeting that a fight between his son Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and former 4-time world title challenger Martin Murray is a possibility for October in Las Vegas, Nevada or Texas. Murray (35-4-1, 16 KOs) says he’s game and interested in taking the fight.

Presumably, the weight for the Chavez Jr. vs. Murray fight would be in the super middleweight division. Chavez Jr. showed in his last fight that he cannot fight below 168. Heck, Chavez Jr. might not even be able to fight at a high level at 168. He might be better off using his A-side muscle to weasel a catch-weight at 172 or just having the fight at 175. That would make the most sense for Chavez Jr., given how weight drained he looked in getting down to the 164.5-pound catch-weight for his fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez on May 6.

“October LA Vegas Texas Boxing @jcchavezjr vs @martin_murray_boxing waiting! Day! Mexico vs. Ingaterra,” said Chavez Sr. on his Twitter.

Murray, 34, then replied back on his Twitter with this post:

“Octobers good for me. Get your team to contact mine,” said Murray.

Murray is still a fringe level world class fighter at this stage in his career. Chavez Jr. is no longer a world level fighter in my opinion. I think he’s completely over-the-hill. Murray will win this fight by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision if the fight takes place. I don’t see any good coming of this fight for Chavez Jr. If he wants to fight someone, he should shoot for the biggest name he can that would be willing to fight him. Chavez Jr. doesn’t need to fight Murray. There are other guys like James DeGale, George Groves or Callum Smith

What’s unclear is whether Chavez Sr. is mindlessly posting on his social media site or if the fight is in the works. If this fight comes off, it’s the last chance saloon for Murray and Chavez Jr. The loser of the fight would be terrible shape career-wise. As bad as Chavez Jr. looked in losing to Canelo, I don’t see how he’ll be able to fight much better fighting at 168.

I think Chavez Jr. is now a cruiserweight. I doubt that he would be strong even at 175. He might need to get the fight against Murray in the cruiserweight division. I don’t think Murray would agree to that though. Murray recently moved down to 160 after he failed to find success in the super middleweight division. Murray moved up from 160 to 168 in 2015, and he fought 7 fights in that weight class and going 5-2. His defeats came at the hands of George Groves and Arthur Abraham.

This would be a good fight if it can get made. Chavez Jr. (50-3-1, 32 KOs) was badly beaten by Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in his last fight on May 6 in a fight that brought in huge pay-per-view numbers on HBO from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chavez Jr. was awful, throwing few punches and just looking like a human punching bag for 12 rounds. Surprising, the boxing fans didn’t boo at the end of the fight. You can argue that Golden Boy Promotions’ decision to announce the news of Canelo fight Gennady Golovkin immediately after the fight was kept the fans from complaining.

What’s surprising is Chavez Jr. didn’t hang up his gloves and retire following his loss to Canelo last May. That was such a non-effort from Chavez Jr. He looked like he didn’t even try to win the fight. Afterwards, Chavez Jr. complained about having to lose a great deal of weight to get down to the 164 ½ pound catch-weight for the fight with Canelo. There was a huge weight penalty that went along with the fight that Chavez Jr. would have had to pay if he’d come in over the 164.5 lb. limit for the fight.

Chavez Jr. came in one-half pound under the limit at 164 lbs. at the weigh-in the Friday before the fight, and he looked terrible. There were reports after the fight that Chavez Jr. had to lose 70 pounds during training camp to get down to the 164.5lb catch-weight. That’s an enormous amount of weight for a fighter to lose in a training camp, and it’s not all that surprising that Chavez Jr. performed so badly given the weight he had to take off. Chavez Jr. should have negotiated for more time to lose the fight; not that it would have mattered.

Murray has fought for world titles 4 times during his 10-year pro career. Those fights and results are as follows:

– Murray vs. Felix Sturm on December 2, 2011. Results: 12 round draw

– Murray vs. Sergio Martinez on April 27, 2013. Results: Murray loses by a 12 round unanimous decision.

– Murray vs. Gennady Golovkin on February 21, 2015. Results: Murray loses by an 11th round technical knockout.

– Murray vs. Arthur Abraham on November 21, 2015. Results: Murray loses by a 12-round split decision.

What’s unclear is why Murray was given so many world title shots when other more deserving fighters were ignored and skipped over by the champions. Murray kept getting title shot after title shot. It’s unreal.

Murray is no longer ranked in the top 15 a middleweight or at super middleweight following his 12 round unanimous decision defeat at the hands of George Groves on June 25, 2016. Murray just covered up for 12 rounds against Groves without throwing more than a handful of punches. Murray has won his last two fights since then in beating Nuhu Lawal and Gabriel Rosado. Murray’s 12 round majority decision win over Rosado on April 22 of this year was very, very controversial, as many people thought Rosado had done enough to deserve the win. Boxing News 24 scored the fight for Rosado. The judges scored the contest 119-108, 116-112 for Murray and 114-114 even. Rosado was very upset after the fight, walking around the ring and angrily complaining.

This would be a good chance for the 31-year-old Chavez Jr. to redeem himself if he gets the weight right and isn’t weight drained for the Murray fight. But I think the fight would need to take place at 172-175 for Chavez Jr. to have any chance of not being weight drained. He’s clearly not a super middleweight. Chavez Jr. has established that he cannot make the weight for the 168lb division without being drained. Chavez Jr. moved up in weight to the super middleweight division in 2013, and he’s had 3 out of his 6 fights at light heavyweight after failing to make the 168lb limit for the super middleweight division. Canelo did make the 164.5 lb. catch-weight for the Canelo fight, but he looked terrible.

If Chavez Jr. has packed on a lot of weight since his loss to Canelo on May 6, then I don’t see any point in him taking the fight with Murray. Granted, Chavez Jr. would have 3 months to train to get down to the weight limit for the fight in October, but if he’s ballooned up in weight to the 230s, then I don’t see there being any point in him fighting Murray. It would be a lot of weight that Chavez Jr. would need to lose in the next 3 months, and I don’t think he could take it off without being weight drained

Chavez Jr. was recently talking about wanting to fight Daniel Jacobs. That fight never happened. Now we’re hearing about Martin Murray fighting Chavez Jr. This could be another pipe dream on Chavez Jr’s part. I think it’s a bad idea though. If Chavez Jr. is going to lose to someone, he needs to at least pick someone that he can get a lot of attention from the boxing media. Murray has been beaten so many times, I don’t think anyone is going to care much about Chavez Jr. fighting him.