By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) looks far from being in tip top shape in his training camp for his September 15th fight against former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In video of him training at espndeportes, Chavez Jr. still looks flabby and appears to be in the low 190s. Chavez Jr. seemed to struggle badly in doing push-up exercises that his training and conditioning coach wanted him to do. Chavez Jr. got a little testy at one point. But more worrisome is Chavez Jr’s right middle knuckle. It looks badly swollen and Chavez Jr. was forced to sit down and ice it. Instead of having fun with the training exercises, Chavez Jr. angry like he wasn’t into it. That’s definitely not a good sign.

Perhaps the knuckle won’t be an issue but the weight could be for Chavez Jr., as he’s still looking much too big with only one month go go before the fight. If he’s lucky he’ll be able to trim down enough to get down to 180 lbs, but I doubt it. It’s difficult to lose over 10 pounds in a month.

If Chavez Jr. can’t take off the rest of the flab, that’s going to put bigger pressure on him when it comes to making weight for the fight. Instead of taking off 20 pounds of water weight in the week of the fight, Chavez Jr. would have to take off 25 pounds and that would be monumental amount of weight. I don’t know how he can take off 20 pounds and not be weight drained like many fighters are when they take off that much weight. But to take off 25 pounds could be a problem for Chavez Jr.

Martinez is going to be the much better conditioned fighter and the much faster guy in the ring on September 15th. The only question is whether Chavez Jr, sporting a 20 pound weight advantage, will be able to use his weight to beat Martinez.