Arreola-Klitschko: Look for Vitali to Grow Old Tonight

By Dave Lahr: Every fighter has their time to shine in the sport of boxing, whether it be for a moment or for a longer time. WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KO’s) has had his moment in the sun, but tonight at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California, Vitali’s time at the top of the heavyweight division will come crashing down when he meets his number #1 ranked challenger Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s).

This is a Rocky-like event in which a fighter that has been given next to no chance at winning is going to shock the socks of boxing experts by not only beating the big 6’8″ Ukrainian heavyweight champion but beating him in style by dominating the fight and taking Klitschko out by the 6th or 7th rounds. Nature will have served it’s course as the Arreola, the young lion of the heavyweight division, will pounce on the slower, now pretty much toothless Klitschko, and rip him to shreds to take over the top spot as the best heavyweight in the planet.

I know that there’s the little matter of Vitali’s younger brother, IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko that still needs to be taken care, but my guess is that the general consensus will be that Arreola will be seen as the top guy in the heavyweight division after he destroys the older Klitschko brother tonight.

In a way, this will actually be good for the sport of boxing because it will rid the sport of one of the duller fighters and bring new life and excitement to the division. At the same time, it will set up a revenge of the brother scenario where Wladimir Klitschko would try to step in and avenge – once again – one of Vitali’s losses.

Wladimir previously did just this by getting revenge for Vitali’s 9th round stoppage loss to Chris Byrd, which took place in April 2000, by trouncing Byrd in a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision victory in October 2000. Whatever the case, a revenge bout between Wladimir and Arreola would be huge for the sport and would give Wladimir his biggest payday by far in his career. All that would need to have happen is that Wladimir would have to convince Vitali to allow him to exact the revenge rather than Vitali trying to get an immediate rematch.

Back to tonight’s fight, Vitali appears to have finally met his match by facing a fighter with power even better than his own. This is the type of fighter that Klitschko would have had huge problems with earlier in his career, mainly because of Arreola’s high pressure style of fighting and his big power.

Arreola doesn’t give his opponents much of a break in between big sledgehammer shots to the head. Vitali will need constant rest breaks to restore energy to his aging body. Klitschko may look like he’s in good shape for a 38-year-old man, but you can’t around that age. That’s old for a fighter and he looks old. The gray is hard to miss and Klitschko looks like an old lion ready to be taken down by one of the younger lions.

The way I see it, Arreola will be all over Klitschko like white on rice at the start of the fight, crowding him, not giving Klitschko room to extend his arms to land. Without room to punch, Vitali will be near helpless, only able to clinch, wrestle and throw an occasional weak punch from short range. Arreola, however, will be right at him in close and will be serving Klitschko up with one big power shot after another.

The Staples Center crowd, mostly all pro-Arreola fans, will be going wild as Arreola lands one big shot after another. This will further give Arreola more confidence to keep smothering Vitali and battering him with power shots. Klitschko will be dispirited, panicky and at a loss with what to do. Vitali isn’t used to having a crowd go against him because most of his fights have been fought in Germany, where he’s treated as a hero by the loving German crowd.

However, the one time that the crowd did turn on Vitali was his fight against Byrd in 2000, and Klitschko seemed to go to pieces once the fans started rooting for Byrd. I see the same thing happening tonight. Klitschko will crumble first mentally, and then physically with the fight being all but over by the 6th round.

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