Arreola: “I’m Already 259”

By Chris Williams: Heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s) sounds a little detached from reality when mentioning his weight in today’s presser, saying “I just checked this morning and I’m already at 259.’ Say what? That’s like saying ‘I’m only 300.’ There’s only two weeks to before his fight with WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KO’s), and even under the best of circumstances, you can probably only drop two pounds of blubber per week.

Anything more than that and you’re stripping off muscle. That will leave Arreola weighing in at a portly 255 by the time he fights Vitali on September 26th. 255, or there a bouts, is essentially what Arreola has been weighing in his last three fights. Arreola has looked huge in a bad way in those fights against Israel Carlos Garcia, Travis Walker and Jameel McCline.

Never mind that Arreola won, because those are B level fighters and it’s expected that Arreola could beat them. Arreola has talent, but he’s messing things up by covering it all that fat. We need to get him to a fat farm in a hurry. I honestly don’t think it’s humanly possible to drop more than five solid pounds of fat before the fight on September 26th.

Arreola may end up taking off another 10 pounds, but that will be a mixture of fat and muscle, not pure fat, which is what he needs right now. Let’s say it is 10 pounds that Arreola takes off. He’ll still be a gargantuan 249, which is about 15 pounds too much for him in my view.

I want Arreola to do good, but how can he if he’s carrying around a big television set worth of fat on his frame. Arreola needed to start with the fat reducing double days a long time ago if he wanted to be in great shape by fight time.

“I’m going to try and not get hit, but I know that’s impossible,” Arreola says. Well, I’m glad he recognizes that because when you’re facing the best heavyweight in the work in 6’7” Klitschko, yes, I’d say you’re going to get hit.

“I’m pretty confident that I can take a punch.” I’m not so certain about. Arreola was dropped by Walker in the 2nd round of their fight last year in November 2008. To his credit, Arreola got up off the deck and stopped Walker in the next round, and undid some of the damage from that knockdown. However, Walker doesn’t have the chin that Vitali has, so Arreola will have to prove that he can take more than one good shots.

He’s going to have to prove that he can take big shots similar to the one that Walker dropped him with over and over again. Arreola was also staggered by Jameel McCline in his last fight in April. McCline isn’t a big puncher either.

“The plan is not to get punched, but to do the punching.” That sounds like wishful thinking on Arreola’s part. He’s going to be getting hit, and I can’t see him out-landing Klitschko unless the big Ukrainian suffers an injury of some sort.

Arreola telegraphs his right hands too much and is wide open the way that he loops them. If I can see this trend, I’m dead certain that Vitali has already noticed it as well and plans on taking advantage of this when Arreola tries to wind up for a big shot.

“My plan is to not stand outside and take all those bombs from him [Vitali].” This means that Arreola is going to try and get in close and make it an inside war against Klitschko? He problem with that strategy, unfortunately, is that Arreola isn’t an inside fighter and tends to do most of his damage at midrange. At that distance, Vitali is very good at landing short hooks, uppercuts and right hands.

Klitschko doesn’t need wind up with his punches like most fighters, because Vitali seems to be a rare type of heavyweight who can generate a lot of power with arm punches alone. If I were Arreola, I would stay well on the outside and occasionally rush Klitschko and hit him with short combinations and then get away before he can land any of his big shots. That’s probably Arreola’s only chance of beating him.

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