Former WBC middleweight titleholder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. says that he expects Freddie Roach to return to the fold for his Sept.28 super middleweight bout against Brian Vera, though the Hall of Fame trainer may do so as an assistant to lead corner man Vladimir Baldenebro along with Julio Cesar Chavez Sr.

The story was originally reported by ESPNDeportes.com

“Vladimir Baldenegro, who is my coach, will be in charge of the corner,” said Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 knockouts), whose matchup with Vera was postponed from Sept. 7 as a result of a small cut over his right eye that was suffered during sparring.

“We are talking with Freddie Roach, because it has not ended, the relationship with Freddie Roach…For the next fight I will work full time with him. Hopefully Freddie, Vldamimir and dad are in the corner.”

Chavez was to have been out of the ring for nearly a year by Sept. 7. His last bout was unanimous decision loss to RING middleweight champion Sergio Martinez last September, after which the relationship between Roach and Chavez Jr. became contentious.

“He [Chavez] called me up and I told him, ‘You know where I am…’ I said, ‘I’ll train you for four weeks in my gym, and then the last two weeks, we’ll go to Mexico City,” said Roach, during an interview with RingTV.com in May.

“But I said, ‘the thing is, that the first day that you miss, Julio, I can’t tolerate that. I’m going to send you home or something.’ So he said that he would see me in a week. So I’m still waiting to hear back from him. But, he did call me up when I was up in Sudbury, Canada. We had a very nice discussion.”

Photo by Chris Farina, Top Rank

Lem Satterfield can be reached at [email protected]