“Fighting Words” – Chris Arreola: All Guts, No Glory

by David P. Greisman
 
There are two types of tears: those for triumph, and those for tragedy.
 
Witness the contrast between two fighters on one night. Floyd Mayweather Jr., the victor, dropping to his knees, crying out, “God is great.” Arturo Gatti, the vanquished, remaining on his stool, his eyes swollen shut, his head cradled by his trainer, just crying.
 
There are two types of tears shed from tragedy: those that come from an outside force leaving one broken, and those that come from internal flaws rendering one brokenhearted.
 
Witness Chris Arreola, brokenhearted and broken, his internal flaws making him all the more vulnerable to external blows.
 
The winner, Vitali Klitschko, stood tall, a statuesque 6-foot-7 figure raising his right glove high. The wounded, Arreola, hunched over, his right glove covering his eyes.
 
For 10 rounds, Klitschko was better from head to toe, with a strategy that played to his strengths and exploited his opponent’s weaknesses, with fists that found flesh 300 times in 30 minutes, with footwork that helped both to deliver harm and to deliver himself from it.
 
For 10 rounds, Arreola was all guts. After, there was no glory.
 
“I’m so sorry,” Arreola said afterward, attempting to hold back tears. “I worked my ass off. F*ck.”
 
Arreola is blue-collar, beer-drinking, belly bulging, brawling over boxing. He can be nothing beyond what he is. It is his character. It is his curse.
 
“Sometimes I don’t think he gives us the best chance to win,” Arreola’s trainer, Henry Ramirez, said during the build-up to the fight. “Sometimes he comes in a little too far out of shape.”
 
“Michael Phelps smokes weed. Why can’t I drink a beer?” Arreola said in the weeks before the fight. “That guy’s still setting records. Why can’t I have a beer?
 
“It’s a problem, but at the same time it’s not,” Arreola said of his lifestyle. “I work hard. I’m going to play hard.”
 
His character. His curse.
 
Arreola had last fought in April, tipping the scales at 255 pounds for his knockout victory over Jameel McCline. Since then, his weight had risen in the vicinity of 290 pounds, held heavily on his 6-foot-3 frame.
 
For the Klitschko fight, Arreola’s trainer brought in conditioning coach Darryl Hudson.
 
“A lot of people use weight as a barometer for saying they’re in a certain shape,” Hudson said. “You can’t go by weight. We’re not training to lose weight. We’re training to be in the best condition. So if the weight falls, it falls.”
 
As is customary for heavyweights, Arreola stepped on the scale two days before his fight. Other divisions have to make a certain weight and must do so the day before they step in the ring.
 
Arreola weighed 272 pounds. But he was smiling. He was wearing a weighted vest beneath his T-shirt. He took off both and got back on the scale. He was 251 pounds.
 
By no means was he svelte. He weighed more than the 229 pounds he’d been about three years ago, when he made his HBO debut with a technical knockout of Damian Wills. He weighed more than the 239 pounds he’d been 15 months year ago, when he returned to HBO for a win over Chazz Witherspoon and the network began to market him as a potential challenger for the heavyweight championship.
 
Still, he was noticeably less tubby than in his previous three fights, when he weighed 255, 254 and 258.5.
 
“He’ll feel the strength,” Hudson said. “He’ll feel that his breathing is under control. He’ll be able to do the things he did in the first round in the ninth round.”
 
It wouldn’t be enough.
 
Arreola is a pressure fighter, coming forward behind combinations, roughing up his opponents into defenselessness or submission. The problem is that while his conditioning would allow him to continue to pressure, his weight would still inhibit his ability to land punches.
 
It is a mistake so many have made when facing Vitali or Wladimir Klitschko. To compensate for the brothers’ height, weight and proportional strength, they pack on the pounds, believing that doing so will help. Rather, they become slower targets in the ring with surprisingly agile men.
 
Vitali Klitschko had harpooned several of these beached whales: Kirk Johnson, Corrie Sanders, Danny Williams and Samuel Peter. Against Arreola, however, he treated the match like a bullfight. Arreola would move in, but Klitschko would stab away, keeping him off with jabs, hooks and body shots, none with one-punch knockout power, all with enough force that Arreola rarely got within range. Klitschko would also pivot, jog a few steps away, and make Arreola, like a drugged, slowed bull, reset for his next charge.
 
Klitschko kept his hands at his sides, knowing that Arreola could neither catch him nor catch up with him.
 
Klitschko was far more active than the typical heavyweight, throwing 802 punches, or 80 per round, and landing 301, or 30 per round. Half of his landed shots were jabs, half of them were power punches.
 
Arreola, who of the two of them was the one who usually overwhelmed opponents with activity, threw only 332 punches in the whole fight, landing 86. That was an average of less than nine landed punches and 33 thrown per three minutes. He landed only 24 power punches over the entire fight, staying in the single digits each stanza: one, two, one, two, three, five, two, four, four, and zero.
 
“He was fighting the fight he was supposed to fight. He ran when he was supposed to,” Arreola said afterward. “He’s just a smarter fighter. Whatever I did, he found a way to counteract that. He just found a way to win. I found a way to lose.”
 
After that 10th round, when it became clear that all Arreola had left to offer was his willingness to get off his stool and take more punishment, the fight was stopped. Two of the three judges had given Klitschko all but one round, scoring the eighth round for Arreola. The third judge had it a shutout and had scored the 10th stanza 10-8 for Klitschko in a round without a knockdown, seeing the action one-sided enough to warrant such a tally.
 
“I never wanted to quit,” Arreola said afterward. “I wanted to go the full 12 rounds. I knew he was fucking me up.”
 
It is tempting to give Arreola credit for courage, for staying upright. At least he had gotten in the ring with Klitschko. That is more than could be said for David Haye, the former cruiserweight champion who called out both Wladimir and Vitali upon his rise to the heavyweight division but then bailed on fights with each.
 
Arreola had been guided toward an eventual title shot, but despite his undefeated record, his professional experience was still that of a prospect, not a contender. His best wins had come against Chazz Witherspoon and Travis Walker, two heavyweights who had never beaten an upper-tier opponent, and against Jameel McCline, a longtime contender who had since grown long in the tooth.
 
Arreola took the title shot that was offered to him. In an era when beltholders fight only two or three times a year, it was better to fight now rather than to get more experience and hope another shot would come.
 
But Arreola didn’t help his chances at winning.
 
“These are 365-day-a-year guys,” HBO blow-by-blow announcer Jim Lampley said of the Klitschko brothers following the fight. “Somebody who thinks they can take 10 days off, have a party, drink and then come back to the gym and be on the same page is not going to beat a Klitschko.”
 
Michael Phelps can smoke marijuana because he already has the gold medals. Chris Arreola must now understand that in the deep waters of the heavyweight division, the more one weighs, the quicker one sinks. If he wants to down a pint, he’s going to need to drop some pounds.

The 10 Count

1.  The Sept. 19 pay-per-view featuring Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his easy win over Juan Manuel Marquez had a buy rate of 1 million.
 
That’s a fantastic number, one attributable to several factors.
 
First, Mayweather, whether you like him or not, is a star. Some who are paying to see him are fans. Others who pay are hoping to see him beat. Once underappreciated despite his talent, he proclaimed himself a pay-per-view fighter before his June 2005 bout with Arturo Gatti and, like that, so he was. He had one more fight on “regular” HBO before headlining shows in 2006 against Zab Judah and Carlos Baldomir.
 
None of those did anywhere near as much business as his record-breaking pay-per-view in May 2007 with Oscar De La Hoya. But Mayweather was the B-side of the main event for the De La Hoya bout, and, on the matter of ticket sales, he was the B-side when it came to drawing a crowd for his December 2007 win over Ricky Hatton.
 
The buy rate for the Marquez fight might have included a number of fans of Mexican heritage who ordered to support Marquez. May have. Even if so, Marquez never drew pay-per-view numbers like those from this most recent fight. Mayweather’s pay-per-view history served to build his fights, gradually, into appointment viewing.
 
Second, this year has not been as inundated with boxing pay-per-views as previous years had been. The first eight months of 2008 saw HBO put on five pay-per-views. HBO would finish the year with four more. The first eight months of 2007 also saw five pay-per-views broadcast or distributed by HBO. Another three would come.
 
This year, HBO had broadcast just one pay-per-view (Ricky Hatton vs. Manny Pacquiao) and distributed one other (the “Lightweight Lightning“ quadruple-header). Some promoters have put on smaller, independent pay-per-views. HBO only had two pay-per-view shows slated for the remainder of 2009: Mayweather-Marquez and Miguel Cotto-Manny Pacquiao.
 
Despite the clear mismatch, the Mayweather-Marquez card, then, wasn’t going to be a hard sell for fans who had waited through the usual slow summer for big-time boxing. That didn’t keep HBO from embarking on its usual hefty marketing effort.
 
Mayweather, who during his time away in the ring had stayed visible with appearances on “Dancing with the Stars” and World Wrestling Entertainment programming, got four episodes of HBO’s “24/7” infomercial documentary series to sell the fight and, as important, himself.

2.  Ticket sales, however, told a different story.
 
The live gate pulled in $6,811,300, according to USA Today, with an attendance of 13,116. Of those, 11,912 tickets were sold at face value, 94 tickets were sold at half price ($300 instead of $600), 895 tickets were either complimentary or given away, and 2,645 tickets went unsold.
 
Not that this is the first time a fight has done great on pay-per-view but so-so at the box office.
 
The heavyweight extravaganza pitting Lennox Lewis against Mike Tyson in 2002 set a then-record for pay-per-view buys with 1.8 million. It failed to fill every seat in the house, however. Promoters had claimed a sellout of 19,000 within hours of tickets going on sale, according to Sports Business Daily. The actual attendance was 15,327.

3.  Following up on last week’s uncertainty over whether the money Mayweather owed the Internal Revenue Service had been paid and whether the IRS had intended to take money from Mayweather’s purse for the Marquez fight, there’s this from the Associated Press:
 
“Floyd Mayweather Jr. agreed to pay $5.6 million in back taxes … the Internal Revenue Service was poised to take the money from his purse after his Saturday comeback fight against Juan Manuel Marquez.
 
“The IRS sent the Nevada Athletic Commission a levy notice on Sept. 4 ordering Mayweather’s unpaid taxes from 2007 to be deducted from his $10 million purse, commission executive director Keith Kizer told the Associated Press.
 
“Kizer said the IRS backed off one week later, after Mayweather agreed to pay the money.”
 
Consider Mayweather 40-1. Nobody beats the federal government.

4.  Boxers Behaving Badly update: James Kirkland has been sentenced to two years in prison on a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, according to court documents.
 
Federal sentencing guidelines for such a charge could have put Kirkland away for 47 to 57 months; instead, the junior-middleweight prospect not only got a two-year sentence, but he will also be credited for the nearly six months he’s already spent behind bars.
 
Credits for good behavior could shorten that time even further, and Texas allows for the final six months of a sentence to be served in a halfway house, Rafael wrote.
 
Kirkland will be on probation for three years and must pay a $5,000 fine and an additional $100 “special assessment,” according to documents available online via the federal court PACER service.
 
Kirkland was already on probation for a 2003 armed robbery. In April, he was seen giving his girlfriend money to buy ammunition at a gun show in Texas. Police pulled him over later and discovered a loaded pistol in his vehicle.
 
Kirkland’s probation officer apparently was already going to revoke Kirkland’s probation for another incident in which he allegedly threw a pistol under a vehicle, according to a report at the time in the Austin American-Statesman. 

5.  Depending on your perspective, James Kirkland is either very lucky or very fortunate.
 
Kirkland’s co-manager, Mike Miller, told Dan Rafael of ESPN.com that he believed the judge gave Kirkland a lesser sentence based on the outpouring of support for the 25-year-old fighter, including testimony from his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya.
 
As I noted earlier this year following Kirkland’s arrest, his career is not necessarily over.
 
Other fighters have been able to return from stints behind bars, most notably Mike Tyson coming back to capture heavyweight belts. It’s easier to compare Kirkland to Tyson than, say, to more contemporary examples in Paul Spadafora and Ricardo Williams Jr.
 
Spadafora wasn’t a power-puncher. He’s still undefeated but is no longer in the title picture or being featured on television. Williams was seen as a bust who had to rebuild even before he went to prison.
 
Kirkland was previously inactive for two-and-a-half years after the 2003 armed robbery. Now the powers-that-be will consider the two strikes on his record before deciding whether it is safe or worthwhile to invest in him.
 
Kirkland is fan-friendly enough that such an investment seems likely. He’s undefeated through 25 fights and has knocked out all but three of his opponents. He’s been prominently featured on HBO and Showtime and, before his arrest and incarceration, was on the verge of challenging for a world title.
 
It doesn’t hurt that he could be back in action no later than 2011. It also doesn’t hurt that his promoter is De La Hoya, who should have no problem persuading networks to once again put Kirkland on the air. 

6.  Boxers Behaving Badly: A former aspiring heavyweight who once said boxing gave him a second chance at life after years of being in a gang will spend the rest of his life in prison as a convicted murderer, according to The Orange County (Calif.) Register.
 
James D. Shipp Jr., 41, murdered a woman who was trying to keep him from raping a co-worker, according to the newspaper. The murder happened in 1998. Shipp will never be eligible for parole. He was also sentenced to another life term on a kidnapping charge and another 119 years and four months for nine felony charges stemming from five other sexual assaults Shipp committed between 1997 and 2001.
 
Shipp was 0-3 as a pro boxer, according to BoxRec.com, losing a bout by knockout in 1992 and then losing two more by the same route in 1997. 

7.  As a news reporter, I look to the AP Stylebook as essential reading, the answer to questions of spelling, capitalization and word choice. As a boxing writer, I look at one part of the AP stylebook as sorely out of date.
 
Here’s why: “The three major sanctioning bodies for professional boxing are the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council and the International Boxing Federation,” it reads, omitting that the World Boxing Organization has long-since turned the number from three to four.
 
Even worse?
 
Under weight classes and titles, it lists the cruiserweight limit as 190 pounds.
 
The limit has been 200 pounds for more than half this decade.

8.  Speaking of out of date, Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins have finally agreed to a rematch, which will be on pay-per-view at some point in the first three months of 2010, according to ESPN.com scribe Dan Rafael.
 
The money will be split 50-50 between the two future Hall of Fame inductees, though a knockout or stoppage would give the winner 60 percent, the loser 40 percent.
 
Hopkins turns 45 on Jan. 15. Roy Jones turns 41 the following day.
 
They were much younger in May 1993, when Jones, then a middleweight titlist, outpointed Hopkins over 12 rounds.
 
Jones and Hopkins jawed at each other about a rematch on a 2002 HBO broadcast. And then the bout seemed to be a go for March 2006, but it was called off. Hopkins instead fought Antonio Tarver that June.

9.  Virgil Hill-Henry Maske I – Nov. 23, 1996. Hill-Maske II – March 31, 2007. Time between – 10 years, four months and eight days. Hill was 43 years old. Maske was also 43.
 
Azumah Nelson-Jeff Fenech II – March 1, 1992. Nelson-Fenech III – June 24, 2008. Time between – 16 years, three months and 23 days. Nelson was nearly 50 years old. Fenech was 44.
 
Roy Jones-Bernard Hopkins I – May 22, 1993. Jones-Hopkins II – Early 2010. Time between – nearly 17 years. Hopkins will be 45. Jones will be 41. 

10.  Hollywood has remakes of old television shows, now movies with new actors. Boxing has rematches of old fights, now with old fighters…

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com