Can Arreola beat Deontay Wilder?

By Boxing News - 06/29/2016 - Comments

1-Wilder vs Arreola LA Press Conference - June 21_ 2016_Presser_Ryan Hafey _ Premier Boxing Champions5

By Allan Fox: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) is going into his title defense next month against #9 WBC Chris Arreola (36-4-1, 31 KOs) as a heavy favorite when the two of them battle it out on July 16 at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. Arreola has a punchers chance of winning the fight if he can land something big. Wilder’s chin is a serious question mark.

It’s quite possible that Wilder won’t be able to handle Arreola’s punching power in this fight. The only question is will Arreola be able to stick around long enough for him to land his bombs?

Arreola is already talking about getting inside Wilder’s long reach to land his pwn big shots. Arreola realizes that he cannot let Wilder fight on the outside if he’s to have a chance of winning the fight.

Arreola will risk taking whatever big shots Wilder can land while coming in close to land his own shots. Wilder is one of those type of fighters that needs to throw his shots from the proper distance for him to get the kind of huge power on them for him to KO his opponents.
Wilder is the favorite by Bovada by the line -5000 to Arreola at +1400. However, Arreola is a proven huge puncher with 31 knockouts on his resume, and he’s not someone that can be knocked out quickly.

The only time Arreola was knocked out early in his career was when he was stopped in the 6th round by Bermane Stiverne in May 2014. Arreola landed some big punches in that fight that would have knocked out a lot of the top heavyweights in the sport.

If anyone is to have the chance of beating Wilder, it’s someone like Arreola because he’s got knockout power in either hand and he’s going to be willing to take whatever Wilder throws at him to get in punching range to land his own shots.

Based on how Arreola has looked in his last four fights, he’s facing an uphill climb in trying to get a knockout over Wilder. Arreola went from looking great against Seth Mitchell in 2013 to looking poor in his subsequent fights against Stiverne, Curtis Harper, Fred Kassi and Travis Kauffman.

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Just how much of that was due to Arreola not being in top condition and how much because of him aging is unclear. We’re probably not going to find out what Arreola can do if he’s in top condition because he’s overweight right now and likely won’t be able to take off the excess weight that he’s put on lately since his last fight in December of last year against Kauffman.