By Dan Ambrose: In a nice little mismatch this Friday night on ESPN2, former heavyweight title challenger Chris Arreola (31-2, 27 KO’s) will be facing journeyman Kendrick Releford (22-14-2, 10 KO’s) in a fight that is scheduled for 10 rounds at the Reno Events Center, in Reno, Nevada. The fight likely won’t go four rounds unless Arreola has continued to lose weight and his power along with it.

Arreola weighed only 234 lbs in his last fight against Nagy Aguilera on May 14th, and Arreola’s power seems to be way down from when he was scaling in the 250s. The problem for Arreola is that it’s been so long since he really looked good. Even when he was in his 250s in recent years, he often looked weight drained because he had already lost so much weight in training camp. But now that he’s down to 234, Arreola is looking the weakest I’ve ever seen him before. He had no problem against Aguilera in his last fight, but he was getting hit and power was almost completely gone. Unless Arreola finds a good weight where he still has power and speed, he’s going to get beat.

Arreola will have no problems beating Releford, though. Releford has been beaten by guys like Tye Fields, Chazz Witherspoon, Enad Licina, Troy Ross, Alexander Alexeev, and Luis Ortiz in the past three years. Releford is more at home at cruiserweight than heavyweight and doesn’t have the size to give a fighter like Arreola any trouble.

Arreola might be better off staying with 2nd tier opposition until he fixes his power problem and finds a good weight that he can fight at and still have his strength. If he were to fight Tomasz Adamek again right now, I’d see Arreola losing badly. He needs power and without it fighters like Adamek will dominate him.