By Sean McDaniel: Undefeated American heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (25-0, 22 KOs) defeated an inexperienced and badly over-matched Israel Carlos Garcia (19-2, 11 KOs) in a 3rd round TKO to retain his WBC Continental Americas heavyweight title on Friday night at the Soboba Casino, in San Jacinto, California. Arreola, 27, came into the fight at a career high of 258 pounds, looking flabby around the midsection and fat everywhere else, staggered Garcia with a big left hook in the third and then blasted him out as he backed up to the ropes. Before Garcia, badly hurt, could go down, the referee Lou Moret stopped the bout at 1:11 of the 3rd round giving Arreola the victory.
Easily the best heavyweight contender in America, Arreola pounced on Garcia in the first round, hitting him with hard combinations and big left uppercuts to the head. Arreola missed a lot of his punches, though, because of his poor hand speed from having put on so much weight. He had reportedly been close to 280 before starting his training camp and had been forced to take off a considerable amount of weight for the fight, although he clearly had a bit of a ways still to go judging from all the fat on his huge 6’4″ frame. However, like big heavyweight George Foreman, Arreola’s extra weight didn’t diminish his immense power in the least, as he still punched with just as much incredible force as he did in his last fight against Chazz Witherspoon, a 3rd round disqualification victory in June.
Near the end of the first round, Arreola caught Garcia up against the ropes and tagged him with a series of free shots to the head and body, nailing him with uppercuts as well. The crowd, clearly backing Arreola, roared each time he would hit Garcia with a big shot to the head.
In the second round, Arreola went after Garcia from the start of the round, slowly walking him down and nailing him with left-right combinations mostly to the head. Usually, Arreola is forced to cut off the ring on his opponents and forcing them to engage with him. However, with Garcia, he chose to foolishly stand right in front of Arreola, making himself a vulnerable target for Arreola’s big right hands and left hooks.
In the last minute of the round, Arreola repeatedly blasted a helpless looking Garcia with one uppercut after another at close range. It was like he was launching artillery fire at the hapless Garcia, who could do nothing to block any of the incoming shots because he was making the mistake of keeping his guard down too low. In the final seconds of the round, Arreola flurried with big shots to the head of Garcia. This allowed Garcia to throw a short right hand – one of the very few punches that Garcia would land in the round – to the head of Arreola, but the punch did nothing to the rock-like head of Arreola, who took it without batting an eyelash.
In the 3rd round, Arreola continued landing heavy shots to the head of Garcia, while occasionally leaning on him with all his weight in clinches. Finally, Arreola opened up with a series of hard punches to the head of Garcia, staggering him with a powerful left hand and causing him to back up to the ropes where he tried futilely to cover up. Arreola plodded after him continuing to throw punches, nailing him with two big left hooks that landed cleanly to the head. The referee Lou Moret then jumped in between the two fighters and stopped the fight at 1:11 of the round.
Garcia, who had slight swelling under his left eye, wasn’t happy with the quick stoppage and wanted to continue fighting. However, it didn’t look like he would have lasted much longer with the way Arreola was bombarding him with punches, even if he did somehow survive the round. Arreola would have no doubt finished him in the 4th, if not in the waning moments of the 3rd if he had to.
Afterwards, a tired and red-faced Arreola said, “I did the best I could to pace myself and find the right kinds of combos…I could have closed the show a lot sooner, I believe. I could have thrown more combs. I could have gone on to fight 10 more rounds at this pace.”
Arreola, ranked #4 in the WBO & WBC, #7 in the IBF, and #11 in the WBA, probably could have gone another 10 rounds as he says, because Garcia wasn’t offering up anything in terms of offense of his own to make Arreola have to expend energy from his heavy frame. However, it wasn’t a good sign to see Arreola come into a fight as much overweight as he was, since he had visible rolls of fat around his midsection and he looked as fat as a small Kodiak bear.