Arreola: “I Have Waited a Lifetime for This Opportunity”

Photo credit: Jan Sanders/Goossen Tutor Promotions – By Erik Schmidt: American heavyweight Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s) is excited about his chance at winning a heavyweight title against the bigger of the Klitschko brothers, World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Kitsch (37-2, 36 KO‘s). Arreola, 27, will finally be getting a chance at a title shot when he fights the 6’7″ Klitschko next month on September 26th, at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California.

The opportunity for the heavy set 6’4” 250 pound Arreola came suddenly when negotiations broke down between Vitali Klitschko and David Haye last month. This left Klitschko in need of a big named challenger, and Arreola, still not the well known, seemed to come closest to filling that requirement.

“I feel honored to have the opportunity to make history in my backyard in my hometown,” (Arreola comes from Los Angeles), Arreola said.

Arreola is looking forward to fighting in front of his home crowd where he hopes to get a lot of fan appreciation win or lose. Klitschko, 38, who lives in Los Angeles part time, may be in for a big surprise when he sees how many Arreola fans come out for the fight.

Klitschko will likely be fighting in front of a large hostile crowd, which may give Arreola some extra inspiration to fight harder. Arreola is going to need any advantage he can get because he doesn’t measure up to the ability, power, experience or conditioning that Klitschko has going for him.

Arreola, it would seem, has only one real chance to win the fight and that’s if he can get Klitschko into a brawl early on and take him out somehow. With a chin as strong as Vitali’s chin, it’s not likely that Arreola will be able to hit Klitschko with a hard enough punch to take him out.

Arreola will find himself in deep trouble once the fight goes into the second half of the bout, because Arreola has never fought beyond the 8th round. That’s a testament to his power and aggression, but also a sign of the mostly lower quality opposition that Arreola has been put in with during his six year pro career.

For a fighter as old as Arreola, he’s been brought a long much too slowly and should have been cutting his teeth against higher quality opposition years ago instead of at 27. Arreola appears to have peaked physically last year with a 3rd round disqualification win over Chazz Witherspoon.

Since that time, Arreola has put on a great deal of weight and hasn’t looked at all good in wins over Israel Carlos Garcia, Travis Walker and Jameel McCline. Arreola has been hurt badly by shots in his last two fights against Walker and McCline.

Arreola is like a heavier, slower, less skilled version of Vitali Klitschko. In other words, a huge fighter with a lot of brute strength who often clubs his smaller opposition into submission. The difference here is that Arreola doesn’t have a jab like Vitali, and doesn’t move around the ring to avoid shots like Klitschko does. If someone wants to hit Arreola, it’s not hard to do.

However, you have to be ready for what he hits you back with. Thus far, few of Arreola’s opponents have been able to take his big clubbing shots. If Klitschko fan take the shots or get out of the way of enough of them, he should be able to take Arreola deep and knockout him out with a big right hand around the 7th or 8th rounds. But if Klitschko gets caught up in a war with Arreola in the first five rounds, when Arreola is at his strongest, then Vitali could end up losing his title.

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