By Dan Ambrose: Former heavyweight title challenger Chris Arreola (35-2, 30 KO’s) will be continuing with his long line of soft fights when he faces Mike Mollo (20-3-1, 12 KO’s) on June 23rd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, This fight, if you want to call it that, will be on the undercard of the Victor Ortiz vs. Josesito Lopez fight.

For the 31-year-old Arreola, this will be his 8th consecutive soft opponent since he was beaten by Tomasz Adamek in April of 2010. That loss seemed to change the course of Arreola’s career, turning from taking on quality opposition to facing 2nd and 3rd tier competition exclusively. Before the loss to Adamek, Arreola was beaten even worse by WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko by a 10th round stoppage in September 2009.

It’s not that Arreola doesn’t have good power or anything. He’s got excellent power, but he fails miserably when going from the 2nd tier opposition to 1st tier fighters like Adamek and Vitali. Judging by Arreola’s performance in his last fight against little known fringe contender Eric Molina, Arreola hasn’t improved a bit. He’s just gotten older and wasted two years of his career facing lower level opposition. Molina had Arreola staggering in the 1st round, and that shouldn’t have happened if Arreola had improved.

Arreola will likely be getting a title shot against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko possibly in December if Arreola doesn’t stink up the joint too badly against Mollo. Arreola is obviously going to beat Mollo, but he’s got to look good enough for Wladimir to want to waste his time. Arreola hasn’t a done a thing to increase his popularity in the last three years, so he’s going to have to look especially good for Wladimir to want to bother fighting him.

Wladimir is interested in facing Arreola in New York. Why? Who knows. Wladimir must be under the impression that Arreola has a fan base, but that’s not really the case. Arreola fans are mostly located in the Los Angeles area.