By Jim Dower: Heavyweight Chris Arreola (28-1, 27 KOs) looked good tonight in destroying heavyweight contender Brian Minto (34-3, 21 KO’s) in a 4th round stoppage tonight at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Arreola, 28, dropped Minto twice in the 4th round with huge shots to the head. After the 2nd knockdown, referee Ed Cotton stepped in and ended the fight at 2:40 of the 4th round.
Arreola came into the fight at a heavy 263 compared the slender 218 pounds of Minto. In the end, Arreola was much too big and strong for the smaller Minto. Arreola was stopped in the 10th round in his previous fight against World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in September. Arreola found the short and plodding Minto much more to his liking compared to the tall and agile Klitschko.
Minto may have been the smaller fighter by a considerable number, but he was in much better shape and much more prepared to get his shots off compared to the heavier, much slower Arreola, who looked to be a minimum of 30 pounds overweight for the fight. The added weight made Arreola as slow as molasses and much easier to hit than he already is.
In the opening round, Minto took the fight the bigger Arreola, hitting him some nice right hands. The problem was that Minto didn’t have the size or the strength to get Arreola’s attention. It was as if a fly hand landed on him each time that Minto would unload with the hardest of his artillery. Arreola seemed not to notice are care what he was hit with. He was going to keep trudging forward so that he could land a big shot of his won. Arreola only landed a small number of punches in the 1st round, and just gave the round away through inactivity.
In the 2nd round, Minto again landed more shots. However, Arreola’s punches, although only about a half of Minto’s in number, where much harder and seemed to bother Minto a great deal. By the end of the round, Minto’s left eye was bruised and swollen looking from the hard right hands that Arreola was hitting him with on occasion.
Arreola landed the better shots in the 3rd round, snapping Minto’s head back with some monstrous right hands that got the crowd into the fight screaming each time that Arreola would land a big shot. However, Minto would immediately answer back with shots of his own to try and match Arreola.
In the 4th round, Minto began to take punishment all of a sudden as Arreola began to find him more and more with hard right hands to the head. Early in the round, Arreola started hitting Minto with chopping right hands that Arreola was able to get a lot of downward power into. Shortly after that, Arreola caught Minto with a huge right hand that put Minto down on the canvas. Arreola then began to really punish a hurt Minto after he got up, hammering him with shot after shot until finally Arreola dropped with a huge left-right combination that put Minto down for the final time. He got up, his left eye bleeding from one of Arreola’s big shots. Referee Eddie Cotton then stopped the bot at 2:40 of the round.
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