Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach appears ready to take back Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. once he is eligible to fight again in a few months and that is a smart move on the former champion’s part.
After his mostly one-sided loss to Sergio Martinez last fall, Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 Kos) went on a tirade blaming Roach for the loss and ultimately severing ties with the five-time trainer of the year.
Most who watched HBO’s 24/7 series that led up to the Chavez Jr.-Martinez bout knew that the only person to blame for the loss was Chavez Jr. He seemed to be lazy and didn’t follow with what Roach was trying to do in the majority of the training camp, which led to a lackadaisical showing in the ring.
Whether or not the marijuana use that got Chavez Jr. a $900,000 fine and a nine-month suspension had anything to do with that, we may never know, but one could speculate it may have.
As Roach stated, Chavez Jr. was looking good in prior camps leading up to the Martinez debacle, so there is some hope that Chavez Jr. will not waste his boxing talent and rise to be a champion once again under Roach’s guidance.
With the pending exit of boxing’s biggest cash cows—Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao—in the next few years, if Chavez Jr. plays it right, he could be one of the few boxers that lead the next generation of pay-per-view-stars.
Sticking with Roach and going by his rules is almost a surefire way for Chavez Jr. to obtain such a spot in the boxing world going forward and the two can get his career back on track by defeating Martinez in a rumored rematch this fall.
Roach also reveals that he will be taking on a new big name fighter who is undefeated in a month’s time. We here at Fight Hub believe it to be Yuriorkis Gamboa as we looked thru the boxing rankings for big name undefeated fighters. The ones that did show up are currently training for fights so we settled on Gamboa thru process of elimination. Who do you guys think will be Roach’s new pupil?
