By Steve Kim
The last time we saw Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32KOs) in the ring it was last July when he defeated Marcos Reyes over ten rounds in El Paso, Texas. Since then he's been out of commission with an injury to his left hand.
But on Monday night he raised a few eyebrows when he seemingly took a few jabs at Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez by issuing an invite to Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin (35-0, 32KOs) to step into the ring with him.
Golovkin, who holds the IBO/WBA/IBF middleweight titles, is the mandatory challenger to Canelo's WBC belt. The World Boxing Council has ordered them to face each other in the fall, but Canelo has yet to confirm that he's willing to face GGG in 2016.
While Chavez's last few fights have taken place at 170-plus, he's willing to stake his purse on the ability to make his super middleweight limit for a fight with Golovkin.
Chavez tweeted on his official account - "Ey GGG You are great as a person and fighter. do not wait for coward..amigo... September #MexicanStyle #mexicanday
And then Chavez told his followers - "If I don't make 168 [for the fight with Golovkin] I will give him my pay [for the fight]."
Tom Loeffler, the managing director of K2 Promotions, told BoxingScene.com - "The fight with Chavez on pay-per-view would be a big fight."
This isn't the first time this match-up has been discussed. Two years ago the two sides (when Chavez was represented by Top Rank) went through an extensive negotiation that led to nothing but wasted time, and Chavez later ending up in litigation with Top Rank. How seriously is this to be taken?
"Look, if we can't make a fight with 'Canelo' (Saul Alvarez), if we can't make a fight with (Billy Joe) Saunders, I think with Chavez it would be an interesting match-up because Chavez being as big as he is and Gennady coming off 22 straight knockouts, I think it would be an interesting fight for the fans. They both have very big fan-bases where the match-up makes it a big event," stated Loeffler.
This past weekend at the Forum in Inglewood, California, Golovkin took care of Dominic Wade in two rounds in front of a sell-out crowd of over 16,000 fans.
As part of the WBC mandate, the winner of the Canelo-Amir Khan bout on May 7th must face Golovkin next or give up the title to Golovkin. Canelo is the prohibitive favorite in that fight and he's made it clear that unless Golovkin agrees to come down to 155-pounds he will not face him.
"I think if Canelo doesn't follow the WBC mandate if he wins on May 7th, I think he's going to take a lot of heat from people,"opined Loeffler.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
