By Eric Thomas: Heavyweight contender Chris Arreola (33-2, 28 KO’s) takes on another soft opponent 31-year-old Alonzo Butler (28-2, 21 KO’s) on November 5th in a scheduled 10 round bout in Mexico. Butler hasn’t fought since last May when he was beaten by Travis Walker by a 10 round majority decision.

Arreola, 30, has really gone backwards with his career since losing a 12 round decision to Tomasz Adamek last year in April. Instead of losing a lot of weight and continuing to take on quality opposition, Arreola has lost a ton of weight and has been fighting 3rd tier opposition for the past four fights. He’s now moving up to 2nd tier in his fight against Butler, but this is the kind of opposition that Arreola fought years ago when he was coming up the ranks.

But Arreola, ranked #2 WBC, #3 WBO, #4 IBF, #10 WBA, should be fighting better opposition with the experience he has. It’s obvious that Arreola is just taking things easy, content to back his way into another title shot by not taking any risks against 1st tier fighters. The good thing with that strategy is that there is almost no chance for any additional setbacks for Arreola. But the bad thing is he’s not gaining anything from destroying guys that have no chance of beating him.

Arreola isn’t learning anything that he can use to compete against the likes of the Klitschkos. That’s who he wants to fight, but Arreola would be better off trying to shoot for a fight against the WBA regular heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin. However, Povetkin’s handlers are probably keep him far away from a fighter like Arreola. Povekin has a lot of milking to day with his new title, starting with a fight against 49-year-old Evander Holyfield. Arreola should be going after someone like Alexander Dimitrenko and Robert Helenius if he wants to improve to where he won’t be beaten so easily next time he fights one of the Klitschkos.