Arreola Overcomes Adversity

In the 12-round main event of ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights” from the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, CA. Chris “The Nightmare” Arreola (29-2, 25KOs) defeated Goosen Tutor stablemate Manuel “El Toro” Quezada (29-6, 18KOs) by unanimous decision in a hard fought dual.

After all the talk of rededicating himself to training and taking the sport seriously, the proof is always in the pudding and the dessert told another story tonight as Arreola came in at 256lbs and was very winded in the later rounds trying to put away his foe. To his credit Arreola confirmed he injured both hands in the fight but fought gallantly and showed the warrior spirit in doing what he had to do to realize victory in the same venue that saw him defeated four months earlier by Tomasz Adamek.

Arreola, who outweighed his competitor by twenty-eight pounds came out fast, driving forward and was met by some good stiff jabs by Quezada. Chris was scoring with a one-two, jab-right to the head and at 1:54 landed a big right-hand to the side of Manuel’s face, who took it well. Chris stayed busy and aggressive with uppercuts and hooks to the body and head along with his one-twos, while Manuel was slow out of the gates almost exclusively throwing the jab with a few right-hands.

Arreola put the pressure on one-minute into the second-round mixing it up with hard shots to the body and head as Manuel covered up, clinched, and looked laxidasical. Towards the end of the round Arreola landed nice right uppercuts and left hooks to the body, as it was all Arreola in the early goings.

In the third-round with Quezada pressing his body up against Chris more frequently to get close and off the end of Chris’ long powerful punches, Arreola landed a hard right-hand upstairs which was the best punch of the contest thus far. At the end of the period with Manuel’s back to the ropes the husky combatants got into the first good exchange and Quezada held his own landing a right uppercut, left hook, straight right, three-punch combination to the mouth of Arreola who still won the round with punishing blows.

In the opening stanza Arreola was using the jab frequently but as the rounds progressed he only needed to use it periodically, as he was landing his power punches without having to set it up with the games most under-used yet reliable punch. Arreola was employing a high work rate and to his pleasure had a flat-footed target who stood right in front of him.

In the fifth-round Arreola rededicated himself to the jab and once again at the end of the stanza Quezada engaged in some toe-to-toe action but he was only doing this in spurts usually to finish off the rounds.

As the fight moved into the middle rounds Chris’ punches lost steam and his work rate slowed causing the fans to get antsy. Blood appeared on the nose of Arreola in the sixth-round and with one-second to go in the stanza Quezada landed his best punch to that point, a hard straight right to the side of the jaw that had Arreola gesturing that it was nothing.

Arreola would periodically catch Maunel against the ropes but for the most part the fight took place in the center of the ring. While there was a lot of leaning on each other from both fighters, they did a good job of separating themselves without referee Jerry Cantu having to interfere much. Quezada took Arreola’s punches well in the first half of the fight sticking around and looking to get into the scrap in the second half, which came to fruition as he got busier while Arreola slowed.

In the ninth-round Arreola picked up the pace while Quezada got lazy dropping his hands to his waist, making it possible for Arreola to land a barrage of big punches ending in a vicious left uppercut under the chin that dropped Manuel to the canvas on all-fours. Quezada got up at the count of nine and Arreola came in looking to finish, landing hard left uppercuts and right-hands then connected with three left hooks up top that floored the Wasco, CA, native again. Quezada stayed on his knees taking full advantage of the count while continuously shaking his head that he was okay. Arreola seemed to have punched himself out by this point but still went hard trying to finish Quezada until the end of the round, which saw Manuel survive.

Quezada came back with a strong tenth-round as the winded Arreola was too tired to capitalize on the previous rounds knockdowns. After the round Arreola informed his corner while on the stool that he hurt his right-hand. In the eleventh-round Quezada took advantage of Chris’ low gas tank and landed some good rights and lefts to the head and at 1:22 landed a huge right uppercut to Arreola’s jaw followed by another hard straight-right. Quezada won two rounds in a row after hitting the canvas twice in the ninth-round but was going to need a knockout to achieve victory as Arreola was comfortably ahead going into the twelfth and final round.

Arreola showed heart in the final round letting his hands fly with an assortment of punches overwhelming Manuel and sending him to the canvas for the third time with an overhand-right to the top of the head. Quezada beat the count for a third time surviving to the end in what was a very interesting last four rounds resulting in a unanimous decision victory for Chris “The Nightmare” Arreola with scores of 117-108 and 118-107 twice. Arreola picked up the WBC FECOMBOX heavyweight championship title improving the 29-year-old contender to (29-2, 25KOs), while Quezada drops two decisions in a row after he had won eighteen straight.

In the post fight interview when asked to rate his performance the always colorful and honest Arreola gave himself a below average grade stating, “about a c-minus man, I feel like that second or third-round I already messed up my left-hand. I should of done a lot more with the jab but I didn’t so that’s what happened.” He was then asked if it was his left or right-hand that was injured and he replied, “My right-hand was like towards the end of the fight like around the eighth-round, seventh-round but the left-hand that’s the main hand that you gotta use.” Chris added, “I was trying to finish him up as soon as I could because he started getting strong, I could feel he started getting stronger throwing combinations, but that’s when I started neutralizing by countering him.”

After suffering his first two defeats to WBC champion Vitali Klitschko (40-2, 38KOs) by knockout and former light heavyweight and cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek (41-1, 27KOs) by majority decision, as well as a fourth-round TKO victory over Brian Minto inbetween the losses, Arreola gets another win under his belt in a bid to become the first pugilist of Mexican decent to win a world heavyweight title.

While Arreola showed grit, heart and determination, he will need to get in better shape and improve his defense if he is to ever clutch a world title in his war torn hands.

All Photos by Big Joe Miranda