By Michael Marley

According to Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, he has no intention of steering Mexican star Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. into a near future showdown against middleweight king Sergio Martinez. WBC President Don Jose Sulaiman has ordered Chavez, the WBC's middleweight champion, to make a mandatory defense against Martinez by March of 2012.

Instead, Arum said he had an exploratory chat with Golden Boy's CEO Richard Schaefer about a more lucrative, all Mexico showdown in April of 2012.

"The fight for Chavez, assuming he beats Peter Manfredo Jr. on Nov. 19, is to fight [Saul] "Canelo" Alvarez," Arum said by telephone from Las Vegas. "I see Canelo also having a November fight. I had lunch with Schaefer a few weeks ago and he raised the subject of Chavez-Alvarez. It's the best fight that can be made for Chavez and for the other kid. It will do great on pay-per-view and also at the gate...if it can happen.

Alvarez, also, has business to take care of. A deal is basically done for Alvarez to defend his title against Kermit Cintron on November 26th in Mexico.

"Look, nothing's been decided and, as I said, they both have fights to take care of first. Schaefer believes the fight should be held in Las Vegas and he may be right on that. I pretty much agree on that aspect but I think both fighters may disagree," Arum said.

"It might be that both of these popular Mexican fighters may want to do it in a spectacular setting like Mexico City's huge Azteca Stadium. That also remains to be seen."

Azteca Stadium, of course, holds the record for boxing's biggest crowd ever, the nearly 132,274 who gathered to see Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. pummel a game but overmatched Greg Haugen. The date of the one-sided bout was Feb. 20, 1993.

You may recall Haugen's pre-fight dismissal of Papa Chavez, saying the man from Culiacan had an 82-0 record littered with KOs over "cabdrivers from Tijuana."

After Chavez battered Haugen, the Mexican icon asked in Spanish what the loser thought about his prior foes. Haugen went for a laugh behind his pain.

"Those were some tough motherf**king cabdrivers," Haugen said.