By Jason Kim: Former heavyweight title challenger Chris Arreola (29-2, 25 KO’s) will be returning to action this Friday night for the first title following surgery on his right hand to repair a tendon injury he suffered in his last fight against Manuel Quezeda in August of 2010. Arreola will be facing Joey Abell (27-4, 26 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Pechanga Resprt & Casino, in Temecula, California.

The 29-year-old Abell’s record is not as impressive as it looks, as all of his 27 wins and 26 knockouts have come against B and C level figthers and he’s not in the same league as Arreola in terms of talent. This should be a huge mismatch unless Arreola’s hands break down on him again or if he comes into the fight grossly overweight.

Arreola, no stranger to hand problems, also broke his left hand in the 2nd round of that fight. Arreola injured his right hand in his 12 round decision loss to Tomasz Adamek in April last year. Clearly, Arreola needs to change how he throws punches to avoid any future hand problems because he has bad tendency to slap with his shots when he’s tired and his form seems to break down all together once he goes past the 6th round of his fights.

Arreola hasn’t looked really good since dispatching Brian Minto in 4 rounds in December 2009. Following that win, Arreola was beaten by Adamek in a 12 round decision loss in April 2010. In August, Arreola plodded his way to a 12 round decision against Quezada and looked slow at fat 256. Arreola’s weight has got to come down, but he seems unable to take the weight off without losing muscle. It’s either he stays fat and keeps his muscle strips off a lot of weight and ends up losing too much muscle and along with it his power. Arreola is still ranked fairly high by the sanctioning bodies at #5 WBC, #7 IBF, #12 WBO and #15 WBA. That will likely continue to drop if he can’t get by Abell on Friday night. However, Arreola should easily win this fight unless he sustains some additional hand injuries.