By Lem Satterfield
Now that Top Rank's CEO, Bob Arum has said that he will not pursue a match up between promotional stablemates WBA junior middleweight king Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 KOs) and newly-crowned WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (43-0-1, 30 KOs), junior middleweight Pawel Wolak apparently wants to throw his hat into the ring.
"Cotto is not going to fight Julio Cesar Chavez this year, because, again, Chavez is not ready," Arum told BoxingScene.com. "Chavez is going to need some more developmental fights before he can get into the ring with somebody like Miguel Cotto."
Coming off of last weekend's unanimous decision that dethroned Sebastian Zbik (30-1, 10 KOs), Chavez has twice pulled out of scheduled bouts opposite Wolak (29-1, 19 KOs), who, like Chavez, is promoted by Top Rank Promotions.
Wolak is coming off the biggest win of his career, March's sixth-round stoppage of former WBA champion Yuri Foreman (28-2, eight KOs).
Wolak already is scheduled to pursue his ninth straight win, his third consecutive knockout as well as his sixth stoppage during that run when he takes on Domincan Republic-born Delvin Rodriguez (25-5-2, 14 KOs) of Danbury, Connecticut on July 15 at the Roseland Ballroom in New York.
But Wolak's manager, Ivan Edwards, said that his fighter still wants Chavez.
"Pawel still wants shot at Chavez. I mean, on to separate occasions Pawel was very close to getting Chavez into the ring. And now that it appears that Chavez doesn't have a opponent in the fall, Wolak would most certainly be interested," said Edwards.
"We have tried everything to get Chavez into the ring. All that I keep hearing is how he is will be a fighting champion. Well, why doesn't he fight Pawel? We are even willing to fight out of our weight class. That's how confident team Wolak is," said Edwards. "Pawel has a very tough fight on national television against Delvin Rodriguez. And if if everything goes as planned, I hope that Chavez Jr. finally agrees to fight Pawel."
