There's a pretty clear argument against what I said in post #36. If Arreola lacks the discipline it would take to do something about the weight issue, my opinion is incorrect, and Arreola has no potential. (I figure if two of my favorite posters, IB and Addie, are going to insist on arguing wth each other, I'll sit over here and argue with my damn self!)
What worries me though is that how much of a career will he actually have? the guy has taken beatings in his last 3 fights! in every single one of them. Look at his face after last nights fight, Adamek landed loads on him and Vitali beat the living day lights out of him. You know what, he will get hit a lot more when he steps it up a level again. The guy needs a defense, and fast otherwise he's just a human punch bag that ships way too much punishment because he's not got the mobility or speed of foot to get out of the way. Even if his mind is moving, his body cannot respond and keep up.
You can't seriously believe 256lbs is an ideal weight for Chris Arreola? :think Stay busy fights? Arreola weighed 251lbs for the biggest fight of his life, and fighting Adamek was a stay busy contest? Nobody told Adamek, Arreola came in at 250lbs for Adamek.
Would that be the tone of undisguised utter contempt? It's directed toward Cristobal Arreola, not you personally.
Yeah, that. You seem completely and utterly dismissive of Chris Arreola. You seem to be implying that he's as bad now as when he was fighting on HBO. :think
I am completely and utterly dismissive of him. :yep It's not so much that he was always this bad; obviously you're right that there has been some decline (from bad to worse IMO). He just never had as much upside as some people seemed to hope even when he was less shitty than he currently is. I never understood why there was ever any opinion to the contrary. :conf Even when he was undefeated and fighting regularly on national TV, it isn't like there were flashes of intense dedication or boxing technique - those are two things that have always been missing. Now that he no longer sits on his punches and tries to finish early, he's even less compelling to watch than he was then. That's my take.
Chris should be under 230 but I give credit to his opponent who had no concern for Arreola's punches. I'd like to see him fight Sosnowski. Peter is tied up and if he loses Chris will have nothing to gain by fighting him. Povetkin is out there too and Haye.
If I catch heat for saying this, I apologize in advance. Before I stumbled on the Arreola fight last night on ESPN 2, I had been watching a scratchy handheld VHS film from 1983 of Jerry Quarry sparring with Monte Masters. Quarry was well into his dementia stage and clearly 20 lbs overweight and Monte Masters was, well, Monte Masters. (If you don't know, I doubt I could explain it to you easily...) Guess which "fight" had more intensity, better technique and more punches with dangerous intentions? And I wanted to like Chris Arreola, I really did. He seems like an A+ guy outside the ring. But he looked terrible. A sluggish overweight guy with no foot or hand speed just slogging through the rounds and no intensity. I couldn't believe this was the guy everyone had been talking up. I hope this was a one-off performance, because he has charisma and is someone who is easy to get behind and root for, but he couldn't have shown less last night.