By Dan Ambrose: Heavyweight contender David Tua (51-3-1, 43 KO’s) has a July 17th 10-round bout coming up against Monte Barrett (34-9, 20 KO’s) at the Tropicana Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. If Tua, 37, can get by Barrett, which is highly probable given Barrett’s problems in the past when taking on big punchers, then Tua could be looking at an interesting bout against the big 6’4” Chris Arreola (28-2, 25 KO’s) in the near future.

Tua is rumored to be interested in fighting Arreola and probably realizes how big that fight would be in the United States among boxing fans. Arreola is made from the same cloth as Tua, a big slugger that likes to stand in front of his opponents trying to mow them down round after round. For Tua, this would be a great way for him to generate excitement about him for a future heavyweight title shot against WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. Tua is currently ranked #2 in the WBO, whereas Arreola is ranked at #10.

Arreola lost his last fight against Tomas Adamek by a 12 round majority decision on April 24th. However, Arreola was able to hurt Adamek a number of times in the fight despite injuring his left hand early in the bout and fighting mostly with his right hand. Arreola isn’t as fast or quite as powerful as Tua, but you can imagine that Arreola wouldn’t back down and would stand and trade with Tua for as long as the fight lasts. Sure, it would be a risky fight for Tua, because if he lost, he would lose the chance to fight Wladimir Klitschko for his WBO title.

However, if Tua were able to beat Arreola, he would increase his name value immensely while at the same time generate much more excitement for a bout between him and Wladimir. He would also likely end up making more money for the fight, because he would more to his name when he goes to the bargaining table with Wladimir. Right now, if Tua was to go into a fight against Wladimir with only wins over 2nd tier opposition, few boxing fans would care and the fight might not generate nearly as much interest than it would if Tua were to go into the fight with an impressive recent win over Arreola.

As you can see, it’s a risk but it’s also something that would pay off in a big way for Tua if he’s successful. For Tua to have any chance of beating Arreola, he would have to come in at the perfect weight. He couldn’t come into this fight at a bloated 250 and expect to win. In recent photos of Tua from his training camp, he’s looking kind of portly, like he’s been eating really well as of late.

Tua couldn’t afford to come in fat against Arreola, because he would likely outwork Tua and beat him by a decision. This is a fight that would also resurrect Arreola’s career. He’s been beaten by Vitali Klitschko and now Adamek recently, and he could use a win now to get his career back in motion. A win over Tua might not bring Arreola all the way back to where he was before losing to Vitali, but it would sure help.