by David P. Greisman
Given the talk, Chris Arreola knows he needs to bring the action.
The talk is that Chris Arreola could soon be in line for a shot at heavyweight titleholder Deontay Wilder. Arreola fights July 18 against Fred Kassi in El Paso, Texas, on the CBS undercard to the fight between 122-pound titleholder Carl Frampton and Alejandro Gonzalez.
Wilder, meanwhile, is expected to be back in the ring on Sept. 26 for the second voluntary defense of a belt he won in January from Bermane Stiverne. That fight would presumably then be followed by a bout against mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin.
So if Arreola is indeed to face Wilder, he’ll need to do well against Kassi, a 35-year-old who is 18-3 with 10 KOs and is coming off a seventh-round knockout loss last November to Amir Mansour.
“I know that he’s a very slick fighter, a boxer that switches a lot, switches from left to righty depending on the kind of offense that you offer him,” Arreola said. “The thing I’ma need to do is use a lot of my angles and give him different views. He’s a very skilled powerful fighter. I want to take him out as soon as I can because they don’t pay us overtime. El Paso fans deserve a good outing from me.”
Arreola has a couple of inches on Kassi and is likely to be heavier as well.
“As far as my weight advantage, you got to impose your will as far as pushing him back, pushing him back smart with the jab, making sure to keep him on his heels because I don’t want him to be on his toes,” Arreola said. “He’s very good on his toes. The main thing I have to do is impose my will, work behind the jab and push his back to the ropes. Once I push his back to the ropes, just work his body and go from the body to the head.”
Arreola will need a good performance. He’s coming off an eight-round decision over Curtis Harper, an unexpected slugfest in which Arreola had far more trouble than he should’ve. Prior to that, Arreola lost a shot at a vacant title — the one Wilder now holds — with a sixth-round stoppage loss to Stiverne.
Arreola, 34, is 36-4 with 31 KOs.
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