CHRIS JOHN vs ROCKY JUAREZ

Chris John has an impressive, unbeaten record but he is a bit of an unknown commodity to U.S. fans. This state of affairs will be rectified when the talented Indonesian makes his American debut on HBO’s double-header from Houston, TX on Saturday in a defence of his WBA featherweight title against local favourite Rocky Juarez.

John, 29, has been unbeatable in his native Indonesia, Japan and Australia. His win over Juan Manuel Marquez in Indonesia three years ago was debatable but I thought that John boxed well enough to get a close decision, with the Mexican fighter docked two points for low blows.

The fight with Juarez is the big break on American TV that the John camp has been seeking for some time. For the likeable Juarez it is a fourth opportunity to become a world champion, but one he well deserves after his stoppage win over Jorge Barrios last September. It was Rocky’s biggest win. After losing the early rounds he came on strongly and was really hammering the tiring Argentinean when the fight was stopped due to Barrios suffering a badly cut mouth.

Juarez is coming down in weight from junior lightweight for Saturday’s bout. He is the stronger of the two fighters and he is the harder hitter. John is quicker, classier and busier.

John has a lovely jab and he is a nice mover with good punch-variety, and when he gets his punches flowing he is hard to beat.

Juarez knows what he has to do, which is to stay on top of John, use his jab and let his shots go. If Juarez fights one of his measured, patient fights he will get outboxed and outworked.

If Juarez can produce the sort of relentless fight that he produced in his first bout with Marco Antonio Barrera, which he almost won, he has a great chance of pulling off the upset on Saturday. Will he do it, though? Juarez looked like losing to Barrios until he came on strongly in the later rounds, and he will not want to give away too many rounds against John, who has been 12 rounds on eight occasions and is a well-conditioned boxer with good staying power.

However, I did think that John was getting hit a lot more than is usually the case when he outpointed Hiroyuki Enoki in his last fight. The Japanese boxer seemed to hurt John with the right hand in the first and sixth rounds. John was cut over the right eye quite early in that fight, suffered bruising and swelling under the eye, and had to dig down to win it despite the wide scores in his favour.

John showed me a champion’s heart and toughness in that fight. Bloodied and under pressure, he responded with a series of punches, leaving Enoki bruised and battered, his left cheek misshapen with a swelling reminiscent of the one Muhammad Ali suffered against Joe Frazier in 1971.

There were reports this week that John had been unwell while in Houston preparing for the fight, and that he had to miss a few days’ training. Thus is a concern, because John will need to be at his fittest and strongest to keep Juarez at bay.

This is such a big fight for John that he obviously would not want to pull out of it, but one hopes that he is not taking a chance and going ahead when he is not at his best physically.

Assuming that John is indeed as fight-ready as he should be, he is likely to be a little too good for Juarez. I think that John can score with the left jab and pick up points with his combinations. His hand speed is likely to be a problem for the more methodical Juarez. Still, with a big crowd right behind him, Juarez is going to be dangerous and determined. Juarez will probably have successes during the contest when he lands his heavier blows but I feel that John is going to be able to fight through the tough moments and keep the punches coming to take a hard-earned decision.