By Jim Dower: Heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (28-2, 25 KO’s), who had previously been used to fighting on HBO, will be taking Manuel Quezada (29-5, 18 KO’s) on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” on August 13th, at the Citizen’s Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California. For the 29-year-old Arreola, this appears to be a step down from what he was formerly accustomed to when his fights were being shown on HBO.

However, Arreola has now been beaten in two out of his last three fights, losing to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko and rising heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek. Arreola now needs to rebuilt his career and work his way slowly back into title contention so that he can try to get another shot at one of the champions in the future. The loss in his fight, a 12 round majority decision to Adamek, didn’t help Arreola stay near the top of the pack. Arreola now has to start beating some decent fighters and hope he doesn’t suffer anymore setbacks in the near future while trying to re-climb the heavyweight ladder.

The loss to Vitali Klitschko last year in September really wasn’t that big of a blow to Arreola’s career, because Vitali is considered the number #1 or number #2, depending on who you ask, heavyweight in the entire division. Arreola never stopped attacking the 6’7” Vitali all the way up until the fight was finally stopped in the 10th due to Arreola taking too much punishment and not fighting competitively against the giant Ukrainian. However, the loss to the smaller 6’1” Adamek was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

That’s the one that really hurt Arreola’s career, because due to his bigger size and better power, it was thought this was a fight that Arreola could win. Arreola did stagger Adamek a number of times in the fight, but he was unable to finish him off and then later on Arreola ran out of gas late in the fight. Afterwards, Arreola complained that he had injured his left hand early in the fight and that had been a factor. It may or may not have been.

However, Arreola didn’t look good in moving around the ring and had problems with the movement from Adamek. That might have been the biggest reason why Arreola was beaten. Arreola was rumored to have started his training camp at near 300 for the Adamek fight. If true, that could have had a bearing on the fight as well, as Arreola came into the fight weighing 250, which would mean that he lost an incredible 50 or so pounds during training camp. That’s an insane amount of weight to lose during training for a fight and you have to wonder if Arreola was slightly weight drained because of it.

Arreola is currently ranked #10 WBO, #11 IBF and #11 WBC. His best bet is probably to try and get ranked in the WBA and go after the current champion David Haye. Arreola would have a puncher’s chance of beating Haye if he could get ranked high enough to force a fight with him. It’s highly doubtful that Haye would just pick a fighter like Arreola to fight out of the blue unless Arreola was his mandatory challenger and Haye was at a risk of being stripped of his title by the WBA if he didn’t fight Arreola.