By Eric Thomas: World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KO’s) will be defending his title on September 26th against unbeaten American Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s) at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles. This will be only Klitschko’s third bout since coming off a four-year retirement last year in October with a 8th round stoppage over then WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter.
Since coming out of retirement, the 38-year-old Klitschko has been looking for a mega fight or at a minimum a challenger that could bring in a good payday against. Vitali thought he had one recently in once beaten British heavyweight David Haye, who is still pretty new to the heavyweight division.
Unfortunately, Haye backed out after not liking the terms of the negotiations and instead decided on fighting what will likely be an easier opponent in WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev. This put Klitschko in a bad place where he had to look in another direction for a worthy opponent.
Aside from Arreola, there weren’t any appealing options for Klitschko to fight, unless he wanted to fight his brother, Wladimir Klitschko, the IBF/WBO heavyweight champion. However, Vitali would never consider doing this because of an old promise that he and Wladimir had made to his mother ages ago about never fighting each other.
The promise may ultimately keep the Klitschko brothers from getting what would likely be the biggest payday of their careers, because there’s no heavyweight on the planet right now that will be able to bring in the kind of money that each of them would make if they decided to fight one another.
As for Haye, he still might be an option later on down the road if Haye can get by Valuev in November and Vitali can defeat Arreola in September. Haye also was unable to make his fight with Wladimir Klitschko, which was supposed to have taken place on June 20th, but Haye backed out with an injury to his back with only weeks to go before the fight.
Because of those to bad experiences with Haye, it’s unclear whether the Klitschko brothers will want to tempt fate by trying for a third fight against Haye. They won’t have much time to wait around before they make their decision, because Haye is a small heavyweight with a weak chin and might not be able to hold onto the title – if he wins it – for more than a fight or two against a top 15 opposition.
While Arreola is undefeated, it’s hard to say how good he actually is. He looked good up until his last two fights against Travis Walker and Jameel McCline, both of which were able to stun Arreola with shots. Arreola was dropped against Walker and needed to come off the deck to win. In the fight against McCline, Arreola was staggered twice by the light-hitting McCline.
In both of those fights, in which Arreola was facing the best opponents of his career, he came in looking out of shape and weighing 255 and 254. Arreola will have to get focused and come in at a much lower weight than that if he’s to have a chance against the 38-year-old Klitschko. Arreola probably isn’t ready to take on a fighter as skilled as Klitschko at this point in his career, but he’s being put in there anyway.
Arreola would have been better served if he had at least one more fight against a quality fighter like Kevin Johnson before stepping it up against Klitschko. However, with Klitschko needing an opponent and Arreola looking at a good payday, he decided to miss out on the opportunity.
Arreola comes from the Los Angeles area, so this means a huge pro-Arreola crowd come September 26th. That could be a blessing or a course, because if he tries to slug it out with Klitschko, a harder puncher and a much more conditioned athlete, it might not bode well for Arreola.
If he gets knocked down like he did against Walker, the chances aren’t good that Arreola would be able to reverse this by putting Klitschko down, because the Ukrainian has a great chin and can take a heck of a shot.
Comments are closed.