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One must admire the Klitschko brothers’ system of boxing, which claimed another in a long line of poor victims on Saturday night at Staples Center. One doesn’t have to be happy about it, however.
Vitali Klitschko did what he was expected to do to Chris Arreola, pick him apart from a safe distance until he broke down and either quit or was knocked out. In this case, the Mexican-American’s trainer stopped it to save his fighter from excessive punishment.
It was impressive, as it usually is when a Klitschko turns in a dominating performance. It is also boring, which isn’t good for the heavyweight division or boxing.
The pro-Arreola crowd went nuts when the Riverside, Calif., fighter was introduced; clearly, they were filled with hope that he might become the first heavyweight titleholder of Mexican descent. And they cheered every time he had any kind of positive moment, which wasn’t very often.
And that was it; there wasn’t much more excitement, only a systematic dismantling of one fighter by another that was more clinical than savage.
It became clear fairly early in the fight that Arreola would fail to get inside the bigger man’s punishing jab and hard rights to do any damage, which ****** the life out of the arena. The result was a foregone conclusion.
The same thing happened when Wladimir Klitschko stopped Ruslan Chagaev in front of 60,000 fans this past June in Germany. Halfway through that fight, a cavernous soccer stadium packed with enthusiastic Klitschko fans seemed like a morgue. Any energy that existed early in the fight disapated into the stale air, which is typical of a Klitschko fight in recent years.
And it happened again on Saturday. I looked around me halfway through the fight, in the same arena in which fans went wild when Shane Mosley fought Antonio Margarito in January, and saw a lot of straight faces. Arreola fans chanted their man’s name a few times during the fight and more than once we heard, “C’mon, Chris,” an expression of frustration as much as a means to spur him on.
By the late rounds, Arreola’s fans had all but given up.
And the Klitschko fans weren’t much more enthusiastic by mid-fight. They stood at times waving Ukrianian flags but they were more or less expressionless. Clearly, they were as bored as everyone else. They wanted their man to win, of course, but they too craved some kind of drama.
The man sitting next to me, a Russian who grew up in the United States, was bubbling with enthusiasm before the fight started and sitting quietly with little to say when it was over. He didn’t have as much fun as he thought he would.
Afterward, at the post-fight news conference, even Klitschko was apologetic. He said a few times that he was sorry the fight wasn’t as entertaining as some would’ve liked.
“I know it wasn’t too impressive looking, but I don’t want to let him punch me,” he said.
And that makes sense, just as it did in the case of Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Juan Manuel Marquez last Saturday in Las Vegas. The boxing purists, who took exception to any criticism of Mayweather, will have appreciated what Klitschko did to Arreola.
Again, I, too, appreciated it. He dominated a tough 6-foot-4, 251-pound, undefeated fighter who never gave up for a moment. One judge had it a shutout through 10 rounds; the other two gave Arreola one round. And Klitschko did what Mayweather couldn’t; he finished Arreola off within the distance.
How can one not be impressed? The man is 38-2, with 37 knockouts, an eye-popping record. Obviously, he and his brother are two of the most dominating heavyweights in history, albeit in a relatively weak era for heavyweights.
I truly admire their abilities and their accomplishments. I just don’t get too excited watching him or his brother fight. Others in the arena on Saturday seemed to feel the same way.
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