Marquez and Alvarado looking to earn Pacquiao fight on Saturday

Marquez and Alvarado looking to earn Pacquiao fight on Saturday

Mark E. Ortega
Martinez News-Gazette
May 15, 2014


Saturday night, boxing returns to The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., as future first ballot Hall of Famer Juan Manuel Marquez squares off with Mike Alvarado in a welterweight bout that could very well determine the next opponent to Manny Pacquiao later this year.

Marquez got his start in the States at the old Forum, racking up victories as an obscure but talented technically sound Mexican fighter. It wasn’t until his controversial draw with Pacquiao a decade ago that Marquez began earning the respect of casual observers.

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Bits & Pieces: Alejandro Perez stays busy, Chris Arreola trains in San Diego

Bits & Pieces: Alejandro Perez stays busy, Chris Arreola trains in San Diego
Mark E. Ortega
RingTV.com
March 25, 2014

Featherweight veteran Alejandro Perez has earned his spot the hard way.

Lightly regarded through the early stages of his career, it wasn’t until the Salinas, Calif. native endured a few defeats before he began to find himself as a fighter.

A mesmerizing one-round knockout of former touted prospect Antonio Escalante in March of 2011 had him hopeful momentum was swinging his way. Instead, it forced a label of being a dangerous, high-risk, low-reward type fighter. That led to only getting offers to fight at 130 pounds despite Perez being at his best at 126 pounds.

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Arreola KOs Mitchell in one

Arreola KOs Mitchell in one
Mark E. Ortega
RingTV.com
September 7, 2013

All throughout the buildup to their fight, Chris Arreola disparaged Seth Mitchell as not being in his league.

Saturday night in their Showtime headlining bout in Indio, Calif., Arreola followed through on those statements, serving up his most impressive victory to date with a first-round knockout.

Arreola (35-3, 31 knockouts), of Riverside, Calif., had Mitchell badly hurt in the first 30 seconds, but the former Michigan State linebacker used his old tackling skills to stay in it as the two hit the mat. Mitchell didn't have the benefit of a timeout, though, and Arreola took advantage, scoring an official knockdown soon after.

Referee Jack Reiss took a close look at Washington, D.C.'s Mitchell (26-2-1, 19 KOs) before letting the fight continue. Arreola jumped on Mitchell and battered him with an assortment of power shots, giving Reiss no choice but to stop it.

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Arreola ready for do-or-die fight against Mitchell

Arreola ready for do-or-die fight against Mitchell
Mark E. Ortega
RingTV.com
September 5, 2013


An intriguing heavyweight crossroads bout takes place on Saturday as former title challenger Chris Arreola meets once-beaten but less experienced standout Seth Mitchell in a Showtime-televised main event at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, Calif.

For Arreola, it is the final opportunity to break through in a career that has had many squandered opportunities.

Over what will amount to a 10-year career on Sept. 5, Arreola has yet to notch a victory over a top-10 heavyweight. Despite this fact, he fought on HBO seven times after scoring a TKO against Damian Wills on the November 2006 pay-per-view undercard of Floyd Mayweather-Carlos Baldomir.

A loss for Arreola would undoubtedly cast him into the discard pile of American heavyweight hype jobs, as well as force Southern Californian to consider another line of work, in his own words.

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Arreola stops Releford in seven

Arreola stops Releford in seven

Mark E. Ortega

Leave-it-in-the-ring.com

May 27, 2011

Friday night in Reno, Nevada, fighting just two weeks after stopping Nagy Aguilera in three rounds in Carson, California, Chris Arreola assumed a role with more spotlight as he stepped into the ESPN Friday Night Fights main event against Kendrick Releford that was vacated by an intriguing junior welterweight bout between Josesito Lopez and Steve Upsher when Lopez suffered an injury in training.

Arreola [32-2, 28 KOs], who fought off-television two Saturday's ago on fellow Goossen-Tutor stablemate Andre Ward's undercard, weighed in at a trim 236 pounds and worked hard to earn a seventh round stoppage against the durable journeyman Releford [22-15-2, 10 KOs], who had only previously been stopped twice in fourteen losses.

Arreola with weight on his shoulders, not in midsection

Arreola with weight on his shoulders, not in midsection

Mark E. Ortega

May 27, 2011

When Friday night's original main event from the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada between Josesito Lopez and Steve Upsher fell apart following a training injury sustained by Lopez a few weeks ago, heavyweight contender Chris Arreola was called upon to step in and headline the ESPN televised Friday Night Fights on short notice. Arreola [31-2, 27 KOs] will be stepping in against journeyman Kendrick Releford just two weeks after scoring a third round stoppage of the game Nagy Aguilera in Carson, California away from the cameras in an off-television appearance.

Adamek outlast Arreola, Angulo batters Julio

Adamek outlast Arreola, Angulo batters Julio
Mark E. Ortega
FightFanNation.com
April 24, 2010

Saturday night from the Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario, California, Tomasz Adamek [41-1, 27 KOs] won an impressive twelve-round majority decision over local hero Chris Arreola [28-2, 25 KOs] in front of a large crowd in the televised headliner of HBO's Boxing After Dark. Arreola started off quickly and for the first four or five rounds it was a firefight that favored the more than thirty pounds heavier fighter. Somewhere in the fifth round, Arreola hurt his left hand and the fight changed as Adamek began to outbox Arreola and move around the ring extremely well. Arreola would land a few big shots in nearly every round but Adamek was landing much more accurately. Adamek's body work in the middle rounds helped slow Arreola down and he enjoyed a surge in the eighth and ninth round. Arreola seized momentum in the tenth and eleventh but Adamek took the twelfth to earn the tight majority decision. One judge had it 114-114 even but was overruled by the 115-113 and a much too wide 117-111 in favor of Adamek.

Arreola not the man to beat the elder Klitschko

Arreola not the man to beat the elder Klitschko

Mark E. Ortega

FightFanNation.com

September 26, 2009

Saturday night in front of a packed crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, Cristobal Arreola gave as good of an effort as any heavyweight in the last few years at dethroning a Klitschko brother of his world championship. Like most of the rest, it wasn't enough, as Klitschko was able to stop Arreola after dishing out a ten-round beating that caused trainer Henry Ramirez to call it off and live to fight another day. Arreola had his moments, but was unable to control many rounds. At the time of the stoppage, Arreola was given three rounds across all three scorecards.

Arreola has chance to make history

Arreola has chance to make history

Mark E. Ortega

FightFanNation.com

September 25, 2009

To be the first Mexican anything in boxing is impressive, and Cristobal Arreola has a chance to do that tomorrow night in front of a basically hometown crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, one of the best places to see a fight bar none. Not to mention the fact that it is HBO's lone televised bout tomorrow night, and it is being featured with a replay of Floyd Mayweather, Jr.'s dismantling of Juan Manuel Marquez that met a reported one million pay-per-view buys last weekend. Arreola is going to receive the ultimate exposure, and if he is somehow able to pull off the upset [Arreola is at least a 4:1 underdog most places], he would become the first heavyweight of Mexican descent to claim a piece of the heavyweight championship of the world, which was at one point the most prestigious championship in all of sports.

Kirkland-Angulo: As hot as it is going to get?

Kirkland-Angulo: As hot as it is going to get?
Mark E. Ortega
Freelance
March 12, 2009


Also eight other matchups and whether they would come off better now or later

There are fights out there that quickly grasp the attention of the boxing public, sometimes a bit too early in time for it to be a realistic possibility based on where in their careers those two fighters are. That is one of the many things that make our sport intriguing, it is all in the timing. It isn’t like football or baseball, where they play basically the same set schedule with a few differences here and there. In boxing, you never can guess where you will be eight months from now; let alone two to five years from now.

With that said, in boxing, many times a fight will start building up heat and excitement even if it doesn’t make sense at that exact moment for that fight to come off. Promoters are always trying to build a fight up so much until both guys are at similar stages in their career, near their projected primes, so that it makes the most money. A lot of times, this has worked and many fights have come together that took years of build-up to produce. It seems that fights like Hagler-Hearns and Tyson-Holyfield, despite their numerous setbacks, were always meant to come together the way they did, and it served the winners in both of those fights much better based on the timing.