POTENTIAL ANGLO-MEXICAN WAR: FROCH VS CHAVEZ JR

It must have been whole lot of wishful thinking on Julio Cesar Chavez Jr when he said he was willing to boil himself down to 160lbs to face the first four-time divisional champion Miguel Cotto sometime in the fall.  As wise as he is craggily, Bob Arum of Top Rank said that would never happen and instead began talks with the “Cobra” Carl Froch for a super middleweight showdown in January of next year.  Arum has gone as far as to say that the negotiation phase of the fight is almost done.

If the bout does come to fruition in the first month of 2015 and neither one fights before hand, it would mark ten months since Julio Cesar Chavez Jr climbed into a ring.  We last saw in March in a much anticipated rematch with Texan Brian Vera that he won in a convincing fashion, unlike their first fight, with a unanimous decision.  Chavez Jr was in talks to face the latest ice cream flavor of the month, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, this past July but said decided to say no to a very lucrative pay day because he didn’t want to sign an extension with Top Rank.

Froch on the other hand saw action this past May also in a rematch against fellow Brit George Groves.  If Froch does not step in  a ring until next January it will mark eight months of inactivity.

Who does it benefit?

It might Chavez Jr who nearly ten years younger than Froch should have some advantage.  The biggest weapons in Froch’s arsenal might be his mobility and the power he carries in the division. A career super middleweight, Froch is very comfortable at the weight and his two losses have come against the cream of the crop, Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward.  The Kessler loss he avenged three years later.  Ward has not given him the opportunity to avenge the loss suffered in the Super Six tournament back in 2011.

Chavez Jr is a big kid.  Unlike his father whose prime came at the 140-pound limit, Chavez Jr has only kept growing staring his career, believe it or not, as a super featherweight.  By his next fight he was up a division and gradually kept growing until capturing the WBC middleweight title, the first Mexican to do so.  Chavez Jr lost the title in his fourth defense against Sergio Martinez in late 2012 and since then has only performed twice against the aforementioned Vera.

The odd-man out here is none other than Gennady Golovkin.  “GGG” as he is known, considered the second coming of Marvin Hagler, JC Chavez Sr and Carlos Mozon or all three rolled into one depending on who you ask, has made it a point that he would face Chavez Jr or Froch at their earliest convenience.  The Chavez Jr almost came to fruition but the seven million greenbacks offered to Junior by Top Rank for the fight and an extension of the contact that ends in October of 2015 was simply just not enough.

As far as Froch is concerned, in a recent interview in England, he stated that, “Golovkin needs to be avoided like the plague.”