Can this Chavez be more than a junior achiever in the ring?

The promotional label on Saturday night’s boxing card at Staples Center is, for the moment, mostly wishful thinking.

Bob Arum’s company, Top Rank, is calling it “The Son Also Rises.” Assume that the first time they typed that phrase, they did so with fingers crossed.

The son is Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. He will attempt to take away Sebastian Zbik’s World Boxing Council middleweight title. Zbik is described by many as a solid, tactical fighter. Arum, Chavez Jr.’s promoter, calls Zbik a “decent, technical European boxer.”

That’s apparently a nice way of saying he doesn’t have much of a knockout punch.

Zbik is 30-0, with 10 knockouts. This will be the German’s first fight outside Europe, and his first defense of the undisputed WBC title since Sergio Martinez vacated his portion in January.

But on this side of the Pond, at least, this fight is all about Junior. He is the story, the buzz, the fascination, all because he is such a huge question mark.

Can this 25-year-old son of Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. become anywhere near the boxer and hero his father was? Can a pretty-face kid, with a reputation of being spoiled and soft, rekindle any measure of the national pride felt for his father over a 25-year career that included six world championships and made him the Muhammad Ali of Mexico?

Arum, who promoted much of Chavez Sr.’s late career and has carefully managed Junior to a 42-0-1 record against a list of the vanquished unfamiliar to most boxing fans, calls Junior “a project.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” Arum says.

Chavez Jr. grew up with all the disadvantages of creating a boxing career. He wasn’t poor — certainly not with his father’s fame and fortune — and he wasn’t hungry. He says he got interested in boxing when he spent a year, at age 16, with his mother in Riverside.

“When I went home [to Culiacan, Mexico],” he says, “I really started to work on it.”

His mother was estranged from Chavez Sr. and went to Riverside as Senior’s interest in actress Salma Hayek became public.

Arum says that “circumstances” are key to making a boxer, and Chavez Jr.’s aren’t the kind that work.

“Generally, rich kids don’t do as well,” he says. “Like Manny [Pacquiao] and Chavez Sr., they had nothing and fought to get what they got. Junior is a rich kid. He had all the advantages.”

Meaning, in boxing, he had all the disadvantages.

“When we started, he was undisciplined and unreliable,” Arum says. “But we knew he was multitalented. He was a good student of the game. He’d been around boxing all his life. It’s a little like horse racing. You look at the blood lines. He certainly has those.”

But the questions were always about heart and desire, and still are.

“We keep watching to see,” Arum says, “is he ready to really bite down, to make the ultimate sacrifices?”

Arum says his last two fights, especially his 12-rounder over Irish John Duddy last June in San Antonio, indicated that there is some there there as a fighter for Chavez Jr.

“After Duddy, maybe,” Arum says.

To give this project every chance to succeed, Arum brought in the A-Team. Chavez Jr. is trained by Freddie Roach, the architect of Pacquiao’s career and the current consensus top trainer in the game. Roach’s friend, Billy Keane, has taken over as manager and Pacquiao’s conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, has joined the Chavez Jr. team.

“Of all the guys I work with,” Ariza says, “he and Manny are the ones who work the hardest. The other guys, when I say stop, they do. Not Julio and Manny.”

Arum says that Chavez Sr. has interest, but takes a hands-off approach to his son’s career. Chavez Jr. says his father has been around at all but two of his fights and adds that he really likes him close by.

“We talk about lots of things, like what I’m doing in the gym,” Chavez Jr. says.

Chavez Jr. has gone out of his way during this fight promotion to make it clear he has goals, that this is a career, not just a rich kid on a lark.

“I want to eventually be known as one of the better fighters ever,” he says. “I know how hard that is to achieve, but I want it.”

Arum’s sights don’t go quite that far down the road.

“Saturday night’s fight is a significant crossroads fight,” he says. “If he passes this test, then there are a lot of guys I can put him in with while Freddie keeps teaching him. He’s not mature enough yet, but if he demonstrates he is, I could match him with [Miguel] Cotto or [Antonio] Margarito.”

Tickets are selling well for the show. The Julio Chavez name will always resonate in boxing. But that raises other questions. Such as:

Are people coming to see Chavez Jr. fight or to see Chavez Sr. watch? And will the son be rising in boxing stature, or off the canvas?

bill.dwyre@latimes.com