by Seattle Doug
- Vitali Klitschko hammers Cris Arreola at the Staples Center.
We all bore witness last Saturday night to yet another episode of Vitali Klitschko’s dominance over the heavyweight division. The victim this time was Cris Arreola, the latest in a string of young American heavyweights that the pundits had hung their hopes on to return the division to American dominance. Hell, even American relevance would be nice.
Staples Center in L.A. was the venue, and it was the usual star-studded affair that has become the norm there for the last few years. The presence of Mike Tyson in the crowd couldn’t make Arreola fight like Mike, though. Unless we’re talking about the late-career Mike, who took numerous punches while showing flashes of ineffective aggression.
To Arreola’s credit, he was game. He showed up in arguably the best shape of his career, certainly better than his previous few fights. He showed remarkable durability and stamina throughout, despite landing few punches and taking many for his troubles. He had a gameplan, to pressure Vitali and attempt to work inside against the big man from Ukraine. He forgot to factor in something though. Vitali is fleet of foot for a man his size, and uses angles to exercise his excellent counter-punching skills. This was the net result of the fight: Arreola comes forward throwing ineffective punches, Vitali moves backwards or slides to the side and smacks him with a counter or two. Repeat for 10 rounds, and you have the fight in a nutshell.
I think Cris was onto something, even if he was incapable of carrying it out successfully. He made Vitali move more than I’ve ever seen him do so, he prevented Vitali from sitting down on most of his punches, lessening their power. Several times in the fight Vitali looked a bit gassed, and in my opinion Cris won the 8th with a high work-rate and Vitali’s lessening of same. It was short-lived though, as the elder Klitschko turned it up in the 9th, all but sealing Arreola’s fate. The simple fact was that Cris isn’t good enough, even if he had the right idea. If you’re going to swarm Vitali, you have to be able to elude a few punches along the way. You also need to bring some power and accuracy once you’re inside to get him out of his gameplan and give yourself something to build on. Cris simply couldn’t do this.
I’ve heard numerous people criticise Vitali for giving us yet another “boring” fight. I’ve also heard the converse argument that his style is what it is, and is extremely effective, and he’d be an idiot to fight any other way. I can agree with both viewpoints to a degree, but think there is middle ground to be had for Vitali. Once he’s established his move and counter dominance, he should stop and sit down on a few punches. He would assuredly score more knockdowns this way, increasing his appeal amongst fans. This is almost a too-little too-late scenario, as I can’t imagine Vitali having more than two or three more fights left in his 38 year old body. Especially given the numerous injuries that kept him out of the game between 2004 and 2008. At this point, fans either accept and appreciate his style, or they’ve written him off as a boring, safety-first fighter who’s never lived up to his physical image and potential as a destroyer.
Myself, I thought it was an extremely effective albeit somewhat boring defense of his belt against a game but limited challenger. Got the job done, could have done more. Regardless of our opinions of Vitali, it’s well established that he’s a very tough nut to crack for anyne out there, and I hope fights with Valuev, Haye, or Povetkin are in his near-term plans. Despite his perceived flaws in style, he’s always enjoyable to watch as he methodically mows down the next supposed challenge to his title. May he defend it a few more times before calling it a career.
