By Jim Dower: Although the World Boxing Council wants WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KOs) to defend his title against forty-year-old Oleg Maskaev next, Vitali instead is looking to defend his title against his WBC number #1 challenger undefeated Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KOs) instead. Vitali is reportedly resisting having to fight Maskaev, since Vitali already defended his title against his number #1 mandatory challenger Juan Carlos Gomez in March, stopping him in the 9th round in Germany.
In an interview at East Side Boxing today by James Slater, Arreola said that “It’s close,” when asked about fighting Vitali. It looks as if the only thing that can prevent this fight from going forward is if the WBC somehow throws a wrench in it and stops it. However, it seems rather strange why they’re so persistent in Klitschko fighting Maskaev because the defense would mean little at this point in Maskaev’s career, attracting few boxing fans and getting little attention in the media.
Maskaev may have been a halfway decent fighter at one time 4-10 years ago, but Maskaev has faded in the past three years and isn’t the same fighter he once was. Maskaev lost his WBC heavyweight title in a 6th round stoppage defeat at the hands of Samuel Peter in March 2008.
Vitali, in turn, came back from a four year retirement last year in 2008 to stop Peter in the 8th round, taking his WBC title from him. Vitali was immediately looking to get some big named opponents such as Nikolay Valuev and David Haye to fight in his next bout, but was forced to defend his title against Gomez in what turned out to be a rather sloppy fight with little real action.
Now, Vitali, 37, wants to try and capitalize on his missed time away from boxing by getting the biggest fights he can find, like Arreola or Haye. Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali’s little brother who holds both the IBF and WBO heavyweight titles, gets the first shot at Haye after winning a coin toss between the two brothers.
Should Wladimir end losing to Haye, then Vitali would get the next crack at fighting Haye. In the meantime, Vitali wants to stay busy by fighting the best opponent he can find and in choosing Arreola, arguably the most popular heavyweight in the United States at this time, Vitali can’t go wrong.
Arreola, 6’4″ 250 pounds, is a powerful heavyweight with a fighting style that is very aggressive and hard to beat due to Arreola huge punching power. Because of his power, size and the constant pressure he puts on his opponents, Arreola tends to take his opponents very quickly.
He does have a problem with his chin, however, as Arreola was knocked down in his fight with Travis Walker and hurt a couple of times in his fight with Jameel McCline recently. That may give Vitali his best chance of winning, because if he lets Arreola stick around too long, the young Mexican heavyweight could end up wearing Vitali down and taking him out.
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