By Jim Dower: 30-year-old heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (35-2, 30 KO’s) is hoping to get another title shot against one of the Klitschko brothers in the near future after beating #10 WBC ranked contender Eric Molina (18-2, 14 KO’s) by a 1st round last Saturday night at the American Bank Center, Corpus Christi, Texas.

Arreola is going to have to fight a lot better than he did against Molina if he wants to beat one of the Klitschko brothers, because Arreola was hurt by a hard right hand from Molina in the 1st round. However, Molina blew it by abandoning his defense to try and blast out Arreola with combinations. Arreola wasn’t that hurt and slipped in a big left hook between Molina’s punches to badly hurt him. Arreola then hit Molina with a chopping right hand that put him down on the canvas where the fight was halted at 2:30 of the round by referee Jon Schorle.

After the fight Arreola was questioned by Showtime analyst Jim Gray about Arreola wanting to fight IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, and Arreola said he’d use the following strategy to try and beat Wladimir: “Work, work, give him a lot of smart pressure, hitting his arms, hitting whatever I can.”

In other words, Arreola would try and take a page out of the playbook that Lamon Brewster and Ross Purity used to beat Wladimir in the past. Those losses came many years ago when Wladimir liked to slug with his opponents. However, since 2004, he’s been more of a boxer/puncher that uses his jab more and moves a lot. He’s not going to stand in front of Arreola and let him land his left hook and looping right hands. Arreola looked slow against Molina and that will be a problem for him because Wladimir does well against guys with slow hand speed like Arreola. If he can see Arreola’s badly telegraphed punches coming, then he’ll be able to get out of the way of his shots with ease.

Arreola will likely have to wait until late 2012 to early 2013 to get a title shot against Wladiimr, if he gets one at all. Wladimir has a fight scheduled against Jean Marc Mormeck on March 3rd, an then another title defense against Tony Thompson in the summer months. There’s a possibility that Arreola may have to wait until next year for the fight with Wladimir if another more interesting fight like Dereck Chisora comes up for him.