By Jim Slattengren: After being beaten two times out of his last three fights, heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (28-2, 25 KO’s) can no longer afford to suffer defeats as he takes on B level opponent Manuel Quezada (29-5, 18 KO’s) on Friday night at the Citizens Business Bank Arena, in Ontario, California. Arreola, who has been suffering from weight problems since 2008, weighed in at 256 on Thursdays’ weigh-in, which isn’t a good weight for Arreola.

However, Arreola could probably still beat a fighter like Quezada no matter how fat he would come in for the fight. However, it’s still not a good sign that Arreola is coming in so high after a 12 round decision loss to Tomasz Adamek last April. You would think that Arreola would train harder and take off enough weight to get down to the mid-230s region, which was Arreola’s best weight of his career.

In Arreola’s last fight, he weighed 250 for his bout with Adamek, but still looked fat and out of shape. Arreola was effective for around half the fight, but in the second half Arreola looked tired and old. The weight appeared to be a problem for him, but that’s why it seems so odd that he would come in even heavier for his next fight. It’s hard to understand, but maybe Arreola is unable to control his weight for some reason.

Arreola is a heavy favorite to stop Quezada tonight. However, if I’m Quezada I’m looking to take Arreola deep and then work him over like Adamek did. Having to cart around all that blubber is a problem for Arreola because it slows him way down and makes him vulnerable against fighters that he should be able to beat without any problems.

Apparently, Arreola has sparred with Quezada before, but that was with head gear and large gloves on. There’s not much you can learn from that. But if Arreola can’t beat a fighter like Quezada then he really needs to think about hanging up the gloves on a permanent basis, because this is a fighter that Arreola is expected to beat.

Quezada can punch a little and he’s not going to make it easy for Arreola to beat him. Arreola is going to have to work for it and not just assume he’s going to be able to score a knockout in the first four to six rounds like he’s been able to do in the past.