By Allan Fox: #6 WBC Chris Arreola (35-4, 31 KOs) is recovering from elbow surgery that he had to remove some bone fragments and scar tissue that he’d been carrying around for the last several years.
If all goes well with his rehab for his elbow, he should be back in the ring by October, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.
Arreola, 33, was beaten by Bermane Stiverne on May 10th by a 6th round knockout in a fight for the vacant WBC heavyweight title. The loss temporarily derailed Arreola’s hopes of capturing a title, but not permanently. He plans on getting back in the ring and working his way to another title shot.
At 33, Arreola is still young enough to come back from the loss to Stiverne and go after another world title, but he might need to either target another world champion such as WBA champ Ruslan Chagaev or take another path by fighting to become the IBF or WBO mandatory challenger. Stiverne has beaten Arreola twice, and he seems to be the superior fighter.
If Arreola has his mind made up to go after the WBC title again, he might luck out if #1 WBC Deontay Wilder takes care of Stiverne for him later on this year when/if they face each other. Arreola then could fight his way to a title shot against Deontay and have a chance of possibly scoring a knockout if he can get to the 6’7” fighters’ chin.
It took Arreola 5 years to get another world title shot after losing to former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in 2009. One of the biggest reasons why it took Arreola so long to get another title shot is that he spent from 2010 to 2012 fighting weak opposition instead of stepping it up the way heavyweights do when they want to get a quick world title fight.
If the idea was that Arreola would improve by fighting the guys he did in those wasted years, then it was a faulty one because Arreola looked to be the same heavyweight he’d always been when he finally faced a good heavyweight in Stiverne in their first fight in 2013.
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