By Jim Dower: The winner of this Saturday night’s fight between top heavyweight contenders Chris Arreola (28-1, 25 KO’s) and Tomasz Adamek (40-1, 27 KO’s) could be facing International Boxing Federation/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko next, according to news from the Los Angeles Times. Arreola and Adamek will be facing off at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California. Klitschko, 34, likes what he sees in the big punching Arreola, saying “I was in my brother’s [WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko] corner when he beat Arreola in Staples. I can see Arreola has potential. Also, he’s rough around the edges. I’ll be watching Adamek-Arreola and the winner will be deserving of a shot at my belts.”

Arreola was stopped in the 10th round last year by Vitali in September. Despite losing the fight and getting totally dominated by the bigger 6’7″ Vitali, Arreola kept coming and trying to land his big shots. He never gave up until the plug was pulled out on him in the 10th. Adamek, 33, a small heavyweight at 6’1″ 220, will likely be trying to avoid mixing it up with the big punching Arreola as much as possible this Saturday.

While Adamek was a slugger in both the light heavyweight and cruiserweight divisions, he’s not carried his power up to the heavyweight division and looks more like a finesse fighter now. In his last fight against Jason Estrada in February, Adamek spent most of the fight moving around the ring in big circles trying to avoid the punches from Estrada. It wasn’t an impressive performance from Adamek, because he treated Estrada like he was a grenade about to go off rather than a light puncher.

This Saturday night, Adamek will be facing a huge puncher in Arreola. This fight should really give Adamek something to worry about. Hopefully, Adamek doesn’t disappoint by running the entire fight. Arreola recently took out Brian Minto in the 4th round last December. Minto, a small heavyweight with the exact size of Adamek, was simply too small to compete with Arreola and ended up getting chopped down in the 4th.

Minto tried to trade with the bigger Arreola but he didn’t have the size to compete with him. If Arreola can catch Adamek or lure him into exchanges, we could find the same thing happening in this fight with Arreola chopping down the 220 pound Adamek. In terms of skills, Adamek is probably the more gifted fighter but he’s giving up too much size and strength in this fight for him to be able to do much more than run.