Freddie Roach: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. needs a stricter approach

Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach said that he’ll have a new, stricter approach with former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. if they successfully land a rematch against Sergio Martinez.

“I’ve told Julio, ‘When we do this again, the first day you miss anything, I’m going home,’ ” Roach said Monday at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he was publicizing the Dec. 8 bout between another of his fighters, Manny Pacquiao, and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Roach told associates during training camp that Chavez Jr. routinely skipped sparring sessions in advance of Saturday’s sellout, pay-per-view bout at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.

Matchmaker Bruce Trampler said Roach joked that things were so lax he was considering making a new boxing training video that would show Chavez sleeping, Roach waiting and an empty gym.

According to Roach, the fighter’s father -- a champion boxer himself -- told the younger Chavez, “You’re training to lose the fight” by limiting some of his “workouts” to tame sessions in the fighter’s Las Vegas home.

“Why mess with success?” Roach asked Monday. “I don’t know why he messed with the success of listening to me. He trained in his living room, and it just wasn’t enough.”

Those close to Chavez’s camp said he believed he could overpower Martinez, as he did in knocking him down in the 12th round and nearly ending the bout.

In the interim, Martinez lost the first 11 rounds on two judges’ scorecards, and took rounds off to save energy for the 12th.

“All he had to do was let his hands go throughout,” Roach said. “It got to the point after the 10th round, I told him I was going to stop the fight. What’s the sense? That woke him up. If we had one more round at the end … but it was too late.”

Roach said he didn’t speak to Chavez after the fight, but is sure the fighter will embrace the new approach should a rematch with Martinez, perhaps in Cowboys Stadium, materialize in the early spring.

“After the fight, how he did in the 12th, he was in a good place,” Roach said. “I want to put him in a bad place.”

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Fall and rise of Chavez Jr., all in one fight

Photos: Sergio Martinez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Sergio Martinez holds on to defeat Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.