Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. Is the Perfect Precursor for Canelo vs. Golovkin

According to Golden Boy Promotions, lineal middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will face former middleweight titleholder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6, during the ever-important Cinco de Mayo boxing weekend, in a 12-round, 164.5-pound catchweight bout.

Essentially, it’s an important super middleweight contest between two of Mexico’s best fighters with far-reaching ramifications.

Three cheers for boxing today. They're well deserved.

It’s the perfect fight at the perfect time for each man, especially Alvarez, who has been heavily criticized for what he’s done since becoming the so-called true champion of the 160-pound division.

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Everyone knows who the best fighter at middleweight likely is right now, and his name is Gennady Golovkin. If there were ever a case for such things as lineal championships being silly and virtually irrelevant, it would be the ever-present absurdity of the middleweight division.

As a brief reminder, the last true middleweight fighter to hold the honor of being king of the 160-pounders was either Kelly Pavlik or Sergio Martinez, depending on which side of the aisle you sit upon regarding whether Martinez was a true middleweight.

If anything, Martinez was at the very minimum a smallish middleweight champion who defended the championship with honesty and integrity and deserves to be enshrined in the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Martinez was a fine middleweight champion.

The same hasn’t held true for his successors. Miguel Cotto, who was an opportunistic junior middleweight at best, thrashed an old and injured Martinez and subsequently ducked Golovkin just as hard as Alvarez has since he defeated Cotto for the title in 2015.

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It’s easy to see why Alvarez might want to to take his sweet time. Golovkin is a monster, someone considered by some circles, including esteemed boxing writer Thomas Hauser and others, as already one of the best middleweight fighters ever.

That is a bit absurd at this point. Let’s get Golovkin in with some real middleweight monsters first. But I digress.

Alvarez has made some silly moves since becoming champion. Facing undeserving challenger Amir Khan turned out to be just as dangerous as it seemed when the fight was first announced.

And his next bout against Liam Smith was basically pointless. Sure, the win netted him a 154-pound alphabet belt, but since when should the true middleweight champion go after something like a silly sanctioning organization’s banner, especially when a noble challenge like Golovkin exists?

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Or at least fight a middleweight?

Maybe the promotional team Oscar De La Hoya employs at Golden Boy finally got a clue. Alvarez doesn’t need meaningless trinkets or silly fights against hopeless competition. He needs bouts against proven winners who are middleweight or bigger. Only those things can prepare him for Golovkin.

Chavez Jr. is exactly that. He captured the WBC middleweight title belt in 2011 against Sebastian Zbik and defended it well against serious contenders, most notably Marco Antonio Rubio and Andy Lee, before losing a unanimous decision to Martinez in 2012.

It was a one-sided bout. Martinez was too fast, powerful and slick for the slow-footed and technique-lacking Chavez Jr. to catch cleanly. But people sometimes forget Chavez Jr. floored Martinez in the final round twice in what almost became a tremendous accomplishment for a fighter constantly living in the shadow of his all-time great father, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr.

There’s not much to say about Canelo-Chavez Jr. other than this: It’s freaking perfect.

Middleweight champion Alvarez will finally face a fighter who will have the physical size and past credentials to prepare him for Golovkin.

Alvarez is the better fighter than Chavez Jr. He has better hands, faster feet and more overall skill. But Chavez Jr. can fight mean like a bully, and he’s 6'1" and uses a freakish ability to come down in weight to become a monster among Smurfs.

And the dude can punch. Ask Lee, a heavy hitter himself who easily outboxed Chavez Jr. in 2012 before being baited into a stand-still-and-throw-punches affair. Chavez Jr. sliced and diced the brave Irishman like a butcher carves up a cow to win with a sixth-round stoppage.

Both fighters need this fight in a big way. By defeating Chavez Jr., Alvarez will prove he is a legitimate middleweight champion, one who might even posses the skill to shock the world against Golovkin someday.

And for Chavez Jr., a win over Alvarez, one of the sport’s 10 best fighters and considered by virtually everyone to be one of its biggest stars, would boost the waning popularity he’s suffered since being undressed by Martinez.

Alvarez is sometimes picked on by media and fight fans alike for being a bully of sorts. His demolition of paper-thin welterweight Khan didn’t’ help him in this regard, but he’s one of boxing’s best challenge-takers.

LM Otero/Associated Press

Here is a fighter who rushed to face boxing’s greatest fighter of the time period in Floyd Mayweather Jr. and since that decision loss has netted excellent wins over supremely gifted fighters like Erislandy Lara and Miguel Cotto.

No one thought he should fight Lara, but he did. That’s something for which he should be commended.

Against Chavez Jr., Alvarez will face a naturally larger and proven former champion with real punching power. And while Alvarez will remain lineal middleweight champion by virtue of the over-the-limit contract weight, the bout is still important to Canelo’s future.

If Alvarez can beat up the bigger, stronger Chavez Jr. the way he has most of his other competition, the idea of the middleweight fight fans want to see most becoming a reality or him beating Golovkin wouldn’t seem so far-fetched.

Canelo. Chavez Jr. Perfect.