By Jake Donovan

The time has finally arrived for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to advance to the part of his career where every fight matters.

Fans have been screaming for years for the son of the Mexican legend to crap or get off the pot, but it has been a slow road to respectability.

Chavez Jr. perhaps still has a ways to go before removing the sideshow label, as evidenced by his failure to please a capacity crowd of more than 12,000 in his hometown of Culiacan, Mexico on Saturday as he outpointed American journeyman Billy Lyell in their ten-round bout.

Scores were 99-92, 96-94, 98-92 in the Fox Sports Espanol headliner that was fought at a brisk pace yet not always entertaining.

It has been a while since Chavez Jr has been on good terms with his countrymen, who have proven to be outspoken critics in his past several bouts. Collective booing has become a far too frequent occurrence of his past several bouts that have taken place south of the border.

There wasn’t a lot of reason to cheer in this particular bout, which was largely controlled by Chavez Jr, but never to the point where the threat of a stoppage ever surfaced.

Lyell, who falls to 22-9 (4KO), offered a tremendous ability to absorb, eating an alarming number of clean right hands as well as several left hooks throughout the night. The Ohio native never came close to going down, though was considerably marked up, including a left eye that was cut and examined by the ringside physician midway through the bout.

Chavez improves to 42-0-1 (30KO) in a bout that served as his second straight collaboration with Freddie Roach, though the first time that the multiple-award winning trainer traveled to Mexico to work with the middleweight contender and also their first full training camp together.

Their first fight together came last June, when Roach joined Team Chavez a couple of weeks prior to the Mexican’s decisive yet hard-fought 12-round decision over John Duddy in what served as his lone fight of 2010.

The Duddy fight put Chavez in line for a future middleweight title shot, though few believed he was anywhere close to being ready, since he was the mandatory challenger to Sergio Martinez.

A lot has changed between then and now. Martinez is still the middleweight king, though no longer the claimant to the alphabet title for which Chavez – who turns 25 in a couple of weeks – is now the mandatory challenger.

The change in alphabet status means that Chavez’ first crack at a major title (the absurd silver belt at stake in his past two bouts notwithstanding) will now come against fellow unbeaten middleweight Sebastian Zbik.

Plans for the winner could include a crack at Martinez, though there is plenty to work out beforehand – such as where a Zbik-Chavez bout will take place.

Co-promoters Zanfer Promotions and Top Rank have worked hard to build up Chavez as a considerable draw in this corner of the world, even if he has yet to boast the credible wins to match. All of his 44 pro bouts to date have taken place in North America, with his time nearly evenly split between the United States and Mexico.

Conversely, Zbik has never fought outside of Europe, with the lion share of his bouts having been fought in his native Germany.

Whenever and wherever the fight lands, Chavez Jr will be ready for the first time in a career that hasn’t always been taken seriously – by fans or at times by the fighter himself.

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/JakeNDaBox or submit questions/comments to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .

Tags: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr , Sebastian Zbik , Chavez-Zbik , Chavez vs Zbik