By Steve Kim
There was a time when Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32KOs) was the apple of Bob Arum's eye, now that distinction belongs to newly crowned WBO super middleweight titlist Gilberto Ramirez (34-0, 24KOs) - who won the title on April 9th by whitewashing Arthur Abraham and will make his first defense on July 23rd versus Dominik Britsch.
The fight with Britsch takes place as part of the Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol HBO Pay-Per-View card from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Is there a chance of having an all-Mexican showdown between Ramirez and Chavez Jr in the future?
Bob Arum, who once promoted Chavez Jr. and is currently guiding the career of 'Zurdo' Ramirez said on Tuesday at a press conference:
"I wouldn't say never but right now I have no faith that Chavez Jr. is disciplined enough to make weight and hasn't demonstrated that he can. I don't think he's disciplined enough to stay in training camp. So it's just a question of why look for a problem and why would you want to do an event if you knew that it would end up as shit? And that's what Im afraid off," Arum said.
The perennially unreliable Chavez Jr. has not fought since last summer and is always a threat not to make weight.
"Obviously, if somebody assured me that Chavez Jr. would make weight, that he'd be serious, the fight would happen, yeah, it would be a pretty good attraction. But right now I'm not convinced,"said Arum, who isn't convinced that him going back to trainer Freddie Roach changes anything.
"No, that's like people who go to rehab for two weeks and they've kicked an addiction."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
