By Matt Stein: With only little time to go before the September 26th bout between WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KO’s) and Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s), the question is whether Arreola, 28, will have enough time to melt of the tonnage by the time the two giant heavyweights enter the ring in September. At a fight this last weekend, Arreola looked to be in the neighborhood of 300 pound and looked as big as a house. Who knows?
Perhaps Arreola finds it easy to take off that kind of weight but I’m trying to imagine myself being that big with a little over 50 pounds to take off the weight. I don’t think I could do it in that short of time. In fact, I don’t think I could make much of a dent on that kind of weight unless I was working out three hours a day on aerobics and reducing my food intake at the same time.
However, Arreola if he does just that, he might be too weak to fight competitively against the 38-year-old Klitschko. Arreola hasn’t looked good weight wise in his past three fights, scaling in well over 250 in each of the bouts. While 250 looks good on the Klitschko brothers, it makes Arreola look positively fat in comparison. With his build, Arreola needs to be in the neighborhood of 235 or 230 if he wants to be competitive against a quality fighter like Vitali Klitchko.
I don’t imagine that Arreola will even try to take off all the weight at this short of a time, because if he does try and get down to 235, which is probably his best weight, he’ll likely be too weak to fight hard against Vitali. Arreola has been able to get away with fighting being heavy in his past three fights due to the low quality of his opponents, all of whom folded within three and four rounds.
None of them were able to take the fat looking Arreola into the deeper rounds to test his conditioning. Klitschko, with his good chin, likely will. Arreola will come out fast as he always does because that’s really his best chance at winning the fight, because the longer the bout goes, the more he’ll wear down because of the extra weight that he’s carrying around with him. You got to give Arreola a punchers’ chance early in the fight because he can really bang when he’s got his offense going at full throttle.
Klitschko, 38, has fought only twice in the past four years and not had to fight anyone who has really pushed him very hard. Arreola will likely try to take advantage of Klitschko’s advanced age and ring rust by going after him hard early in the fight and trying to wear the big Ukrainian down. It’s a calculated risk, because unless Arreola can take Klitschko out early or have enough stamina to keep pushing the fight into the later round, Vitali could take over the fight and batter Arreola into submission with big right hands.
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