Until I see him in an American ring I refuse to believe Chris John will ever leave his home for a fight. He's probably making decent money beating totally outclassed competition. His desire to seek out the best competition is behind his desire to make a living. Nothing wrong with that but it makes him irrelevant to most.
I always liked Juarez, but I have been horribly disapointed at his seeming unwillingness or inability to crank up any intensity when he needs to change a fight. He has legit bone cracking power, and guys who have that should be willing to turn it up when someone is outboxing them. He just seems to get too content stalking a fighter and eating jabs. The second Barrera fight showed that. Barerra clearly couldn't handle Rock's power in the first fight, so he just walked backward and scored to win rounds. He never really put any pain on Juarez, and Rocky seemed happy to just stalk after him and eat jabs all night. He never seemed to be concerned the entire fight about losing. The only time I've ever seen him lose to another come forward fighter was against Soto, and that fight was not really a blowout. He did OK considering Soto was a last minute replacement with a totally different style than the original opponent, and he injured his hand on Humberto's rock solid jaw.
He has left home for fights. He's fought in Oz and Japan. He must make a heck of a lot of money for a routine title fight. Fighters outside America aren't the only ppl to do this. Look at when Winky Wright was defending his IBF 154-pound title on Roy Jones/Square Ring undercards. He basically said, why should I fight Mosley when I can make the same money making 2 or 3 easy title defenses? This was when WW was stalling on fighting Mosley, some time before the 2 fights they had. Almost every fighter thinks this way - re risk and reward. I don't like to see crap title defenses but economics dictate. Chris John is fighting a very tough, very hungry Jackson Asiku next month. British fans know that Asiku is no joke. This could be a good fight. After that John is fighting his mandatory, unbeaten Hiroyuki Enoki, in Japan, in October. Taking on a mandatory away from home isn't usually easy. Juarez has disappointed far too many times, IMO. I would have liked to see John fight in America. It wouldn't take so long to get hold of his fights. GBP will still be interested in him. Likely they want to grab all the developed talent they can (as they did with Linares, who fought mostly in Japan) and control the division like they are at lightweight.