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HBO Boxing After Dark Recap

November 29, 2008 Citizens

Bank Arena-Ontario, California

1. NABF/WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight (200+ pounds) Heavyweight 12-Round Championship Unification Match:

Chris Arreola (25-0, 22 KO's, 254 pounds) (WBC Continental Americas) vs. Travis Walker (28-1-1, 22 KO's, 231 pounds) (NABF)

Arreola won his title when it was vacant by defeating Thomas Hayes via knockout at 1:45 of round 3 on September 21, 2007 at the Doubletree Hotel in Ontario, California. The previous champion was Tony Thompson who vacated the belt to take a match that made him the mandatory contender to one of Wladimir Klitschko's heavyweight titles. Arreola is making his third defense of this championship.

Walker won a newly created interim version of the NABF Heavyweight Championship via technical knockout over TJ Wilson (not the pro-wrestler) at 1:50 of round 2 on February 29, 2008 at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino in Lemoore, California. The Houston, Texas resident's title was upgraded to a full championship when the previous champion, Hasim Rahman, passed on facing Walker for a higher paying match with James Toney. Walker is making his first defense of this championship.

Arreola had a good amateur boxing career that culminated when he won the 2001 National Golden Gloves Championship at 178 pounds.

The Riverside, California resident probably would have been a very good boxer at 175 pounds. However, since then his weight has ballooned out of control. This has caused people to question Arreola's commitment to boxing.

Arreola's last match saw him show up the heaviest of his career at 258.5 pounds. That is 80.5 pounds more then he weighed when he won his amateur championship. That was up 19.5 pounds over his match 3 months earlier. On September 25, 2008, Arreola faced an over-matched last minute replacement in Israel Garcia and won via technical knockout at 1:11 of round 3 at the Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, California. After the match, Arreola gave a fair appraisal of his performance as a D+/C- showing in the ring that night. Arreola knew he should have knocked out Garcia earlier. Arreola said he was going back to the gym the week after the match. He showed up to training camp for the match with Garcia at around 280 pounds. Arreola's performance in the ring was a solid a D+/C-. However, the bigger issue coming out of the match was that Arreola's performance in the gym was a solid F-. A full recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2008/11/29/recap-of-chris-arreola-vs-israel-garcia.html

Arreola is unranked by The Ring magazine, and the number 28 ranked heavyweight in the world by boxrec.com.

Walker had a short, but solid amateur boxing career that was highlighted when he won the 2003 National Golden Gloves Super Heavyweight (200+ pounds) Championship.

The Houstonian has made his record by defeating a mix of inexperienced and poor competition. The boxer with the most wins and a winning record that Walker has faced was the 17-12-1, Ralph West. West was coming in having lost 5 of his last 6 matches all by knockout in under 7 minutes and never should have been sanctioned. Walker knocked out West at 2:17 of round 2 on December 6, 2007 at the Ameristar Casino in Saint Charles, Missouri.

Walker's last match was a non-title match with Wallace McDaniel on September 4, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Houston, Texas. Walker stopped the 8-19-1 McDaniel via technical knockout at 27 seconds of round 1. McDaniel weighed in at 288 pounds for that match. Therefore, Walker has experience fighting obese heavyweights.

Walker is unranked by The Ring, and the number 49 ranked heavyweight in the world by boxrec.com.

At 27-years-old, Arreola is 2 years younger then the 29-year-old Walker. Walker has the height advantage standing 6' 4.5" tall, while Arreola stands a generous 6' 3" tall. Arreola has the reach advantage with a 25.5" arm length measured from the armpit to the end of the fist, compared to the 24.5" arm length of Walker. Neither boxers' unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However, neither boxers weight should have changed much since the official weigh-ins. Therefore, Arreola will be the much heavier competitor in the ring. Walker appears to be in great shape and is competing at the lowest weight of his professional career. That indicates he may be looking to make this a test of stamina. Both boxers will employ the orthodox stance.

California's modified version of the unified rules of boxing are in effect for this event. The home areas of the judges keeping official score of this match from ringside are not announced. The referee is Jack Reiss. Harold Lederman will be keeping unofficial score of this event for HBO.

Walker dominates Arreola to take round 1, 10-9. Whenever, Walker lands a clean punch to the soft midsection of the local boxer, the crowd gasps. Lederman scores round 1 for Walker, 10-9. According to CompuBox, Walker threw 106 punches in round 1. That number is over double what the average heavyweight throws in a round. The record for punches thrown in a round by a heavyweight is 122, and if Arreola does not begin to show some defensive skills that record may fall. A straight right hand to the face drops Arreola to a knee with 2:33 to go in round 2. Arreola easily answers the count and is allowed to continue with 2:20 to go in the round. It appears to have been a flash knockdown and Arreola appears fine when the action resume. With 1:26 to go in round 2, the referee calls time to have Walker's mouthpiece put back in place. At the time of the interruption Arreola is bleeding from what appears to be a cut on his nose. It was probably caused by an unintentional clash of heads. With 59 seconds to go in round 2, Walker is hurt and goes down to the canvas. The Houstonian may not beat the count. Walker successfully answers the count and is allowed to continue with 45 seconds to go in the round. However, Walker is looking bad when the action resumes and Arreola may finish him. A left hand that was largely a push sends a badly hurt Walker down again with 27 seconds to go still in round 2. The referee allows Walker to continue with 13 seconds to go in the round. However, he looks very bad. The 3 knockdown rule is not in effect and a boxer cannot be saved by the bell in California. Arreola takes the best heavyweight round of the year, 10-8. From when there was 1 minute left in round 2 through the 1 minute intermission between rounds the fans have been going crazy. With 2:48 to go in round 3, a left hook leaves Walker sitting in a corner. The moment Walker went down, the referee waved off the match. The winner via technical knockout is Arreola in probably the most entertaining heavyweight match of the year or possibly last couple years. Walker is upset about the stoppage, but there was no question the referee had to stop the match there. The referee did a good job. The crowd in the building is screaming themselves horse at this outcome. It will be tough for the main event to follow this.

The official outcome from the legendary Michael Buffer is that: at 13 seconds of round 3 the winner by knockout (that may be changed to technical knockout), now unified NABF and WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight Champion, and still undefeated, Chris "The Nightmare" Arreola. The win moves Arreola to 26-0 with now 23 wins coming by way of knockout.

The final punchstat numbers have Arreola landing 44 of the 81 total punches he threw, for an astounding 54% total connect percentage. Arreola landed 36 of the 55 power punches he threw, for a devastating 65% power connect percentage. Walker landed 43 of the 190 total punches he threw, for a 23% total connect percentage. The Houstonian landed 33 of the 105 power punches he threw, for a 31% power connect percentage.

Arreola was very entertaining in his post match interview, but the quotes were not family friendly. The double champion explained that he was knocked down, because he just got caught by a strong guy. Arreola said that he was passive in the first round to evaluate Walker's power and the type of punches he threw. Next time Arreola might want to try doing that on a video tape. Arreola said he wants to face a Klitschko brother. He said he is concerned about his weight. The Riverside resident said he will be back in the gym on Monday to get in better shape.

Arreola was fun to watch in this match. That should not be confused with him being good in this match. He is still in terrible shape and his defense is awful. Arreola said he was going to be in the gym the week after his last match and lost a total of 4.5 pounds in the 2 months. He hits very hard and has a lot of talent. Unfortunately, Arreola appears to have little discipline or true dedication to the sport of boxing. Arreola is probably the best heavyweight from the United States, but that is mostly by default. Until, he actually realizes the need to be an athlete and not a skilled guy who muddles through by hitting very hard it is tough to tell what Arreola's potential is. Right now, Arreola could best be described as a poor man's Samuel Peter. This match obligates Arreola to face Alexander Povetkin next with the winner getting a shot a heavyweight belt that is currently being held by Wladimir Klitschko. This match was supposed to make Arreola the immediate number 1 contender to Klitschko with Povetkin using his sanctioning body mandated title shot on December 13. However, Povetkin got hurt running and had to pull out of that match. Therefore, Hasim Rahman is being used as the mandatory title defense in place of Povetkin. That means the winner of Arreola-Povetkin will not be guaranteed a title shot until December 2010. Look for Arreola to go to Germany to face Povetkin on HBO in the April-June window of 2009.

Walker was better then expected in this match and put on an entertaining performance. However, in the end Walker did what he was expected to do, lose by knockout. He has good power, but a suspect chin. Walker is marketable as being one of the top heavyweights from the United States. However, that again speaks more to the state of the division in this country then about Walker's greatness. This match was enjoyable to watch. That will make it easy for Walker to go back to facing mid-level opponents on ShoBox, and they can talk about how he nearly beat the great Arreola.

The opening heavyweight match may have been the most entertaining heavyweight matches shown on television in the United States in a couple years. That does not mean it was a quality match. However, it was an exciting enjoyable match to watch. The first match is something people should go out of their way to see.