By Erik Schmidt: For those who said that former WBA cruiserweight champion Firat Arslan (29-5-1, 18 KO’s) was doing well in his fight against France’s Steve Herelius (20-1-1, 12 KO’s) on Saturday night, I think they need to watch the fight again. Arslan, 39, looked old and unable to pull the trigger for most of the fight. He took a real pounding, especially in the 11th round when he was hurt by a big right hand from Herelius. Arslan didn’t go down, to his credit, but he may have wished he did because the 33-year-old Herelius was able to tee off on Arslan at will for well over a minute before the round ended.

In between the 11th and 12th rounds, the referee Stanley Christodoulou stopped the bout after it was clear that the beaten looking Arslan couldn’t get up off his stool. Herelius was then given the win by an 11th round retirement. Moments later, Arslan had to be carried out of the ring on a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital for tests.

Herelius dominated virtually every round of the fight except for the 4th when Arslan, whose face was already swelling up and turning red from all the shots he was eating, landed some big right hands in the round to barely nick it. However, following the 4th, Herelius continued to land at will with his jabs, straight left hands and powerful uppercuts.

Arslan plodded forward just covering up and waiting for an opening. He waited too much and let the taller, more active Herelius hit him at will with shots. Some of the rounds were kind of close, like the 7th, but Herelius was still landing a massive amount of shots while Arslan was pretty limited to one or two big shots every round. The German crowd cheered anything he did, which may have give Arslan more encouragement. But he was way out of his class against the younger Herelius and just getting royally hammered. Arslan did next to nothing in the 9th and 10th other than throwing a rare shot here and there. It was all one-way traffic from there on in. In the 11th, Arslan got tagged with a big right hook from Herelius that caused Arslan to take a step back and stagger just a little. After that, Herelius hit him at will with shots for the remainder of the round in ugly one-sided action.

Arslan needs to really consider retiring. He’s going to be turning 40 in September, and this is his 2nd consecutive stoppage loss. Before this, Arslan was stopped two years ago by Guillermo Jones in the 10th round, losing his WBA cruiserweight title in the process. I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was for Arslan to be fighting a 12 round bout after two years of inactivity at his age. That seems like an insane thing to do. Granted, the WBA cruiserweight interim title was on the line, but when you’ve take that much time off from boxing at Arslan’s age, the last thing you need is a long 12 round fight against a younger, more active opponent.

Arslan should have eased himself back in action with some six or eight round rights and then worked his way back up to 10 and then 12 rounds instead of going from a long layoff into a title bout against one of the best fighters in the cruiserweight division. I don’t think Herelius is the best fighter in the cruiserweight division, but he’s definitely top 10 at the minimum, and that’s more than I can say for Arslan. Although Arslan was technically ranked number #4 by the WBA, I think he didn’t deserve a top 10 ranking.

Arslan has never been a great fighter to begin with but he’s looked very average in his last two fights and he needs to consider hanging them up. If he doesn’t want to retire, then at least he needs to be put in with lower level fighters that he has a better chance of beating. Anyone with a work rate that is halfway decent would have an excellent chance of beating Arslan at this point in his career. He’s just unable to pull the trigger like he used and his physique looks like it’s lost a lot of size for some reason.