By Eric Thomas: According to the latest boxing news, heavyweight contender Chris Arreola fought through most of his 12 round decision win over Manuel Quezada last Friday night with a broken left hand and a damaged right hand. Apparently, Arreola broke his left hand in the 2nd round and then later suffered tendon damage in his right hand. That would help explain why the 29-year-old Arreola looked so rubber-armed when punching. His fists seemed to be more slaps than solid punches and his old power was gone.

Arreola ended up winning the fight but took a lot of punishment from a fighter he should have been able to take out quite fast given Quezada’s lack of power and experience. Arreola will be undergoing surgery to repair the problems. This isn’t the first time that Arreola suffered hand problems. He also experienced an injury to his left hand early in his fight with Tomasz Adamek last April. Arreola’s power and conditioning was missing in that fight, and he ended up losing by a 10 round decision.

Arreola still looked out of shape against Quezada, and he needs to work on his conditioning in a big way if he wants to get back in with one of the heavyweight champions in the future. Arreola was stoppped by World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in the 10th round last year. It was thought then that Arreola would quickly be back for another title shot against Vitali or his brother IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. but the loss to Adamek really hurt Arreola. And now the injury to both of Arreola’s hands. That’s going to take time to heal and who knows how long it will be before Arreola is back in action.

Most of all, Arreola has to trim off more blubber and try to get back down to the mid 230s. He’s been weighing between 250 and 263 in his fights during the past couple of years and the weight doesn’t seem to be helping him. Indeed, Arreola weighed a hefty 256 for Quezada and looked like he could stand to lose an easy 30 pounds and still be considered overweight.