Wladimir interested in fighting Arreola in New York

By Boxing News - 07/05/2011 - Comments

Image: Wladimir interested in fighting Arreola in New YorkBy Eric Thomas: For his next fight, IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko says he’d really like to fight in New York and take on Chis Arreola. Wladimir sees Arreola as a good opponent to take on in front of the American fans and it would be one of Wladimir’s rare fights in the U.S. He’s not interested, however, in fighting David Haye again because he feels that Haye can’t fight at the heavyweight level.

Speaking with sportsillustrated.cnn.com, Wladimir said “Let’s do it. I checked with Emmanuel, he thinks it’s perfect too. Arreola has more experience, he has lost some weight. I hope we can do it in New York. I want to fight in front of that audience. When I fought Ibragimov and [Calvin] Brock, a lot of people came. I hope they would come out again.”

Wladimir is also interested in fighting heavyweights Alexander Povetkin, Denis Boytsov, Derek Chisora, and Tyson Fury.

Arreola is ranked no. 5 by the IBF, and has put together a small string of wins since losing to Tomasz Adamek in 2010. Arreola has lost some weight and looked a little bit better than he did when he was stopped by WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in the 10th round in 2010. But Arreola doesn’t look good enough for a lot of boxing fans to see him fight. But then again neither does Fury, Chisora, Povetkin or Boytsov. Arreola might possibly be the best of a bad bunch.

Compared to those fighters, Arreola arguably has the bigger power and a larger fan base but that’s not saying a whole lot. He’s incredibly slow and now that he’s lost weight, he’s not as big a puncher as he was when he was carrying around more weight. It would be an even worst mismatch than the Haye fight because Arreola wouldn’t have the wheels to run for his life the same way that Haye did in his loss to Wladimir.

Wladimir says he wants to fight before the end of the year. He’ll likely take on the best fighter of the bunch, which probably end up being Arreola. However, with his three titles, Wladimir is now going to be busy fighting mandatory challengers and that’s not exactly appealing. Wladimir will have to go over old ground by fighting Eddie Chambers again soon, as he’s the number 1 contender by the IBF, and Ruslan Chagaev is ranked #1 by the WBA. Wladimir already easily beat both of those guys, and it would disappointing to have to see him beat both of them again one after another.



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