By Dave Lahr: One bit a bad news that hasn’t received a lot of attention with the Kelly Pavlik vs. Paul Williams bout being canceled for December 5th is that the welterweight clash between former International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KO’s) and former WBO welterweight champion Carlos Quintana (26-2, 20 KO’s) has been called off as well.

This would have been an interesting fight and would have made a great supporting fight for the Pavlik-Williams fight had it taken place. Pavlik had to cancel the fight due to slow healing staph infection on his left hand which has been plaguing teh WBC/WBO champion for months, requiring two surgeries.

Quintana, 32, defeated Paul Williams by a 12 round decision in February of 2008 to capture the WBO welterweight title in a shocking victory. However, Quintana wasn’t able to hold onto the title for long, as Williams recaptured the WBO title with a 1st round knockout of Quintana in June 2008.

Quintana has done little since losing to Williams, fighting once and beating Joshua Onyango by a 4th round stoppage last year in October. Quintana badly needs to get back in the ring and stay busy and it’s unfortunate that the Clottey bout fell through for Quitana because this would have given him a great opportunity to get his career back in motion. As of now, there’s no planned opponent for his next fight.

Clottey, 32, was defeated by Miguel Cotto by a 12 round split decision in June 2009. Clottey came real close to pulling off the upset, but faded in the last four rounds of the bout and let the opportunity slip away. However, Clottey still remains ranked high in the welterweight division at number #1 in the World Boxing Association and #2 for the WBO, so he’ll obviously be getting another title shot against one of the champions in the very near future regardless of the Quintana fight being called off.

You got to feel a little bit sorry for Clottey. He originally was supposed to be fighting Shane Mosley in December, but that fight fell through and he then had to look at fighting Quintana, a considerable step down from a nice money fight against Mosley. Now, Clottey has no one to fight and will have to scramble around to find a suitable replacement opponent.

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Chris Arreola to fight David Tua in December

ESPN witer Dan Rafael states heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (27-1, 24 KO’s) could be facing David Tua (50-3-1, 43 KO’s) in December. On paper, this would seem to be an exciting fight if they could somehow arrange it. Personally, I doubt that Tua would take on a dangerous fighter like Arreola at this point in his career, even though I think Tua would have a small chance of beating him. Arreola’s chin is too good and he’d likely be able to stand up to Tua’s mammoth shots and end up outworking him.

Arreola was badly beaten in a one-sided 10th round stoppage loss to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in September, but Arreola is a lot better than he showed in that fight. The problem for Arreola was that he was facing a heavyweight with much more talent than him. But Arreola has more tools than the average heavyweight and would be big trouble for the 36-year-old Tua.

Tua stopped Shane Cameron in the 2nd round on October 2nd. However, there’s a huge difference between a fighter like Cameron, who is ranked at the bottom of the heavyweight division, and a fighter like Arreola. Tua had a perfect opponent to look good against in Cameron and it’s questionable whether Tua could duplicate that result against a good heavyweight contender at the top of the division. I see Arreola easily beating Tua by decision if they fight.