By Jason Kim:At Thursday’s weigh-in, heavyweight challenger Chris Arreola (27-0, 24 KO’s) came in at 251 for Saturday’s bout against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KO’s) at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. Klitschko, 38, weighed in at a firm looking 252, a normal weight for him. The big 6′” Ukrainian, always in tip top shape, has weighed roughly the same weight for the past nine years dating back to 2000. Arreola came in at slightly less than he’s weighed in his last three bouts.

However, Arreola looks a lot firmer than he has in those three bouts which seems to show that Arreola has worked a lot harder on his conditioning and dieting than he has in the recent past. Arreola’s ideal weight in the past has been in the 240 range. One area of concern about Arreola’s present condition is that he looks melted down, as if he lost a great deal of weight in a big hurry.

Arreola’s muscles appear smaller and one has to wonder whether Arreola took too much weight off too quickly for this fight whether by dieting or too much aerobics. There are rumors that Arreola weighed over 300 pounds when he started training for his fight against Klitschko two months ago.

If that weight was Arreola’s true weight at the time, this would mean that he’s taken off 50 pounds in two months which is far too much weight to take off in such a short amount of time without losing a great deal of muscle along the way. Even if Arreola was weighing slightly less than that at, say, 280, that is still a ton of weight to take off in a short period of time without it having disastrous effects on Arreola’s strength.

If this was Jameel McCline or Travis Walker that Arreola was facing, I wouldn’t be so worried about it. However, Klitschko is a lot better than those two fighters and won’t be taken out quickly like those two fighters were. Will Arreola have the stamina and strength to keep fighting hard after the 5th or 6th round when Klitschko doesn’t fold?

I have my doubts. Not only does Arreola look weak and weigh drained, but he’s had few fights that have gone beyond the 6th round during his six year boxing career. The longest Arreola has ever fought was eight rounds against a badly over-matched Malcom Tann in 2007.