By Tim Williams: This Saturday an exciting heavyweight showdown will take place between two of the most powerful heavyweights in the U.S when Chris Arreola (25-0, 22 KOs) takes on Travis Walker (28-1-1, 22 KOs) in a 12-round International Boxing Federation (IBF) title eliminator bout at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California. Arreola, 27, is ranked #2 in the WBC, #4 in both the IBF and WBO and #8 in the WBA, and is considered one of the hardest punchers in the heavyweight division.
However, he may have his hands full against the 29 year-old, 6’4″ Walker, who perhaps hits a little harder but is rawer in terms of boxing skills and ability. With Walker’s huge power, though, he often more than makes up for his lack of polish with exciting knockouts of his opponents.
Walker, currently ranked #5 in the WBO, #11 in the WBC and #13 in the IBF, has fought mostly limited opposition up to this point, with his best win of his career being a eight-round majority decision over former 2004 Olympian Jason Estrada in 2006.
Walker’s career hit a speed bump in 2007, when he was taken out in a controversial 1st round stoppage by the gargantuan heavyweight TJ Wilson. Walker, however, avenged his defeat four months later, stopping Wilson with a series of huge hooks in a 2nd round stoppage victory in February proving that his loss was just a fluke.
At 6’4″ 250 pounds, Walker has the power and size to give anyone in the heavyweight division serious problems if he connects with his shots. Arreola probably won’t be shying away from a war with Walker, and will likely go right at him and try to trade shots with him for however long the fight lasts.
Arreola, too, has fought mostly limited opposition, with perhaps his best win of his career being a 3rd round disqualification stoppage of contender Chazz Witherspoon in June. Arreola has battled with his weight recently after ballooning up nearly 20 pounds to 258 for his most recent fight, a 3rd round stoppage over Israel Carlos Garcia in September.
Arreola looked slow and appeared to be at least 30 pounds overweight. If Arreola is to have a chance against the best heavyweights in the division like Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, then he’s going to have to try and keep his weight down because he’ll have problems once he goes up against fighters of their caliber.
In other action on the card, Paul Williams (35-1, 26 KOs) will go up against 38 year-old Verno Phillips (42-10-1, 21 KOs) in a 12-round bout for the interim WBO light middleweight title. Williams, 27, is the current WBO welterweight champion, but wants to expand his horizons by picking up a title in the light middleweight division.
Known for his high volume work rate, Williams often smothers his opponents with a constant flow of punches and eventually overwhelms them at some point in the fight. He has victories over Antonio Margarito, Sharmba Mitchell and Carlos Quintana on his resume.
In February 2008, Williams was upset by Quintana, losing a 12-round unanimous decision to him in a fight where Williams had a lot of problems with Quintana’s movement and fast flurries. Four months later, though, Williams changed his tactics by going after Quintana hard in the first round and succeeded in taking him out with several hard hooks to the head to recapture his WBO title.
Phillips, 38, had been around for a long time, having fought professionally for the past 20 years and has fought many of the big names in boxing like Julian Jackson, Kassim Ouma, Bronko McKart, and Ike Quartey. In his last fight, however, he surprised many by defeating Cory Spinks by a 12-round split decision to capture the IBF light middleweight title.
However, at 5’7″, Phillips may have his work cut out for him against Williams, because he doesn’t have a high work rate nor does he have the kind of power to give Williams any kind of problems. More a counter puncher than a power guy, Phillips will have to hope that he can land enough short combinations to get the edge from the judges while at the same time trying to stay out of range of Williams’ big looping shots.