Deontay Wilder a HUGE favorite over Chris Arreola

By Boxing News - 06/17/2016 - Comments

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(Photo Credit: Bill Hoffman/Bruno Event Team) By Scott Gilfoid: The oddsmakers have WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) a tremendous favorite to hand Chris Arreola (36-4-1, 31 KOs) his fifth defeat of his career on July 16 in their fight at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s given that the talented 6’7” Deontay would the favorite going into their fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox and Fox Deportes just based on his punching power, size, speed and mobility, but this fight is seen as a HUGE mismatch for some reason.

According to Bavado, Wilder is listed at -5000 to beat the 35-year-old Arreola. For his part, Arreola is listed at +1400. That doesn’t mean that Arreola doesn’t have a chance to pull off an upset on July 16 when he gets inside the ring with the unbeaten Wilder. It just means that Arreola is going to need to do something special for him to get the ‘W’ in this fight, because clearly what he’s been doing lately isn’t likely going to work against Deontay.

I think it’s safe to say that Arreola looked absolutely HORRIBLE in his last four fights against Travis Kauffman, Fred Kassi, Curtis Harper and Bermane Stiverne. I honestly don’t know what happened to Arreola. I mean, Arreola went from looking sensational in his fight against Seth Mitchell in September 2013 to looking really bad ever since then. I think it might have been Arreola’s second loss to Bermane Stiverne in May 2014 that started the downhill run him, because that loss was the beginning of a series of less than impressive performances from him. However, Arreola still showed excellent punching power in his last three fights. It’s just that he wasn’t able to put enough of his punches together in any one round to close the show.

Obviously, Arreola was never going to KO the likes of Stiverne and Kassi, because those guys have very good chins, and they’re hard to hit repeatedly with power shots. Never the less, Arreola could have beaten them if he had better stamina and a better chin in his fight against Stiverne.

Deontay, 30, needs to make sure that he doesn’t overlook the threat Arreola brings to the ring for their fight on July 16, because this is one of the biggest punchers that he’s ever faced before. Arreola is like an buried mine from World War II that has been dug up. The mine is going to be unstable, and if you trigger the explosive inside, it could go off.

I wouldn’t want to be Deontay if one of Arreola’s big left hooks or right hands explode on his chin. That’s why Deontay has got to be careful with Arreola, because he’s far more dangerous and unpredictable than his last couple opponents in Artur Szpilka and Johann Duhaupas.

At 35, Arreola is still relatively young for a heavyweight. Many of the heavyweights are able to keep fighting at a high level into their 40s if they take care of themselves. Arreola’s weight has been pretty good lately. He weighed 236 for his last fight against Travis Kauffman last December. That might have been a tad too light for Arreola, because he seems to be more dangerous when he’s in the mid-240s for his fights.

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I don’t think Arreola was designed to fight in the 230s. When he gets below 240, I think Arreola sacrifices too much muscle and punching power. That’s bad thing about taking blubber off. Sometimes when you take too much of it off, you lose valuable lean muscle tissue and it can leave you in a weakened condition. Arreola might be better off going into the Wilder fight around 250, because he’s facing a big heavyweight with size and power.

Deontay was 228lbs for his last fight against Artur Szpilka last January. I don’t see Deontay going much past that weight because it seems to slow him down when he puts more weight on. If Arreola can come into the fight around 250, it would give him a 20 pound weight advantage over Deontay, and that might help him compete better. If nothing else, it will help Arreola take the heavy right hands that Wilder will be hitting him with. When you’re going against a big puncher like Deontay, I think it’s important to be have a lot of weight on your side.