Wladimir Wants Bout With Arreola – News

By Jason Kim: According to Fight News, IBF/WBO Wladimir Kitsch (52-3, 46 KO’s) is interested in fighting undefeated American heavyweight Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s) on June 20th, choosing him as a replacement for the injured David Haye after the British fighter backed out today after injuring his hand while training for his bout with Klitschko that was to take place in a soccer stadium, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

Arreola would be a good selection for Klitschko except for one thing. His promoter Dan Goosen said yesterday that Arreola wouldn’t be ready to take a fight with Wladimir at such short notice and that he still needs to time to get in shape for the fight.

Instead, Goosen offered up veteran James Toney as an opponent for Wladimir. It’s unclear whether Klitschko got that message or not, because Wladimir has made no mention of wanting to fight the 40-year-old Toney. However, if Arreola’s promoter does decide to let the Chris go ahead and take the fight with Wladimir, it would be a big step up for Arreola to take.

Arreola has been struggling with the likes of Travis Walker and Jameel McCline as of late and not looking all that good in beating them. In both of those bouts, Arreola came in looking out of shape and was staggered. This perhaps hasn’t been missed by Wladimir, who might see Arreola as an opponent that he wouldn’t have to work hard to get by.

Arreola doesn’t have the hand speed that Haye has and would be less of a threat to catch Wladimir with a shot that he doesn’t see. Arreola is more of a methodical puncher and needs to land a series of hard shots to get a fighter out of there. Arreola would have difficulty landing more than one punch at a time against the bigger Wladimir, even though Arreola has good size at 6’4” and power.

Arreola doesn’t have a great jab and moves more like a tank because of that would be a big underdog in the fight. However, it would be a bout where Arreola would have an excuse should he lose due to his lack of preparation for the bout and experience.

The boxing public would be less hard on Arreola if he were to lose compared to Haye, who has will likely get a lot of abuse strewn on him because he was a prior champion at cruiserweight, and would probably excuse the loss. If Arreola wins, then he’d look even better because he’d have done it without much experience.

It’s hard to imagine that Arreola won’t want to step up and take this fight whether his promoter wants him to or not because it will be the biggest payday of his career and it will be hard for him to turn it down. Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir’s older brother, has said that he wants to fight Arreola.

The problem is Vitali I still tied down with a possible mandatory challenger Oleg Maskaev that he might have to fight next. Vitali’s trying to get out of taking the fight right away, because he’s already fought his number #1 mandatory in his last fight against Juan Carlos Gomez.

However, Vitali may be okay with Wladimir taking on Arreola instead of him. Arreola looked heavy in his last fight against McCline, coming into the bout weighing over 250 pounds. If he comes into a fight with Wladimir weighing that much then Arreola would have next to no chance of winning the fight because he looked really slow at that weight.

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