Julio Cesar Chavez Jr one step closer to becoming "great"...

Chavez Jr celebrates victory over Andy Lee.

Yesterday (June 16th), Mexican middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr made the third successful defence of his WBC world title. He did this by stopping top Irish contender Andy Lee in the seventh round.

Going into this fight, I think that Chavez had a hell of a lot of doubters. Many people just thought that he was living in the shadow of his dad and that was the only reason he actually made it in this sport. He was also constantly criticised for taking fights with relatively easy opponents. However, during this fight, he got rid of all doubts in anybodies mind. Lee was definitely a world level fighter and Chavez just looked a level above him from the second round on.

Lee started well and on most people's scorecards won the first two rounds. But, from that point on, Chavez just put constant pressure on the Irishman and began to wear him down. In my opinion, Lee fought the wrong fight. Everybody knew that if he was going to stand a chance of winning, he was going to have to stick out the jab and just attempt to out-box Chavez. However, his Irish fighting pride kicked in and he chose to stand toe-to-toe with Chavez. This was the wrong decision.

From the fourth round on, Chavez looked dominant and was landing a lot of clean body shots on Lee. It was  easy to see that Lee was tiring and when it got to the seventh round he just couldn't continue any more. Chavez pinned him against the ropes and unleashed his pressure on the inside. He caught Lee a number of times leaving him out on his feet. The referee chose to jump in and stop the fight.

Pound-for-pound contender Sergio Martinez.

This obviously wasn't the toughest fight that Team Chavez could have took but they proved to a lot of people that their fighter is a lot better than some people may think.

And, in the post-fight interview with Chavez and his Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, things got even better. Arum announced that on September 15th, the middleweight fight that everybody wants to see is going to happen. Julio Cesar Chavez  Jr against Sergio Martinez. People have been calling for this fight for a very long time. Many people, and I must say including myself, accused Chavez of ducking Martinez. The fans all call Martinez the true middleweight champion as Chavez was basically handed the WBC title.

On September 15th, we will find out who is the true middleweight champion of the world. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr or Sergio 'Maravilla' Martinez?