Is Arreola eating his way out of the top 10?

By Dave Lahr: For those who saw Chris Arreola (28-1, 25 KO’s) defeat an undersized Brian Minto in a 4th round stoppage last Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, they couldn’t have been too impressed with what they saw in Arreola. After talking about spending more time in training after a 10th round TKO loss to World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in September, Arreola came into Saturday’s fight weighing an all time high of 263 pounds against Minto.

The added weight, which was five pounds more than his highest weight, made Arreola very slow and ultimately hittable. Minto landed often in rounds one three, hitting Arreola far too many times than he probably would have been able to had Arreola came into the fight at his best weight of around 235.

Arreola said after the bout that he gets hungry late at night around nine and needs to eat. It might not be so bad if Arreola would stick to eating lo calorie foods like carrots of broccoli, but he obviously eating the kinds of foods that tend to stick to the ribs. How else could Arreola have gained weight in such a short time after his fight in September.

Arreola weighed 251 for that fight, which was still around 15 pounds too much for Arreola to carry and still be effective. Against Minto, you could see how badly the extra weight was effecting Arreola. He looked fat and terribly slow, and missed many of his slow punches because of the extra bulk. Arreola has never been fast, but the added fat that he’s put on his carcass has made him that much slower.

The way that Arreola looked against Minto, I think he would have had serious problems if he was in with a better heavyweight like Alexander Povetkin and Kevin Johnson, to name just a couple. The problem here is that Arreola seems to be getting bigger with every fight instead of smaller. There’s going to be a certain point where it will be impossible for Arrreola to make it down to his old weight, even if he wanted to, and still be successful.

Once a fighter has reached a certain size, it becomes very hard on their body to take the weight off and get to a weight where they were once effective. At the rate that Arreola is putting on tonnage, he may find himself soon fighting regularly in the 270s. By that point, it will be very difficult for Arreola to still be fighting at a high level.

He’ll find himself getting outmaneuvered in bouts in a similar manner like Samuel Peter. Besides this, putting on a lot of weight tends to age a fighter badly and shorten their career. Arreola perhaps doesn’t realize this. He needs to get serious and start eating right, because he won’t be able to last for long in the division if he gets much bigger than the weight that he came into Saturday’s fight with.

Arreola looked really sloppy against Minto. And while Minto is technically a top 10 fighter, he’s someone that good heavyweights should be able to beat without taking a lot of shots like Arreola did.

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